The Perks of a PhD in Finland

Today I found out that I missed out a bit by getting my PhD anywhere but Finland.

Yes, Finland

For some reason, news items of beautiful, largely senseless things in Finland keep finding their way to me. I’m not even remotely of Finnish ancestry, so I really don’t know why this happens. Maybe so I can make my friends of Finnish ancestry happy? (That would actually be a fairly good reason!)

For example, last December we wrote about a mad Finnish architect obsessed with creating beautiful, though ephemeral, snow sculptures.

Today, it came to my attention that when you get a PhD in Finland, they give you a doctoral top hat and a sword:

I checked this out with a bunch of other people, who confirmed the story and showed pictures of their swords. Smells pretty real to me.

I’m pretty sure it isn’t given immediately after passing the thesis defense. Giving grad students the grilling of their lives and then handing them an edged weapon seems like… a poor survival strategy.

All I got was a hood, a diploma, and then shown the door, releasing me from jail. (And that felt pretty good at the time, but… a sword!)

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Notes & References

1: This way to the egress.