This weekend I had my second masters degree conferred - well after it should have been, thanks to some clerical errors and Melbourne University replacing their student administration system after I'd completed. I donned the cap and gown, sat in a hall, listened to speeches and clapped as about two hundred students walked across the stage before me, and another hundred walked after.

I've never been one for ceremonies. Perhaps my private school's love of formal ceremonies (with mandatory attendance, of course) for absolutely everything trained me out of their significance, but I usually find them more of a chore to be sat through than something to be stirred by.  I confess, however, as I listened to the occasional address this weekend, that I did feel a small glimmer of pride at what I'd completed. This is fairly unusual, for me. My brain's particular learning style makes it well-suited to academics; I learn things easily and quickly. I'm also an achievement junkie - I'm happy to work hard - in fact, I won't even realise I'm working hard - if there's some kind of trophy or signifier at the end, like an assignment grade. With those two things combined, I breezed through my degrees, and it's harder to value something that feels like it came to you easily. But celebrating it as I did this weekend made a difference.

Making it count

Melbourne Uni tries its best to have class. It wants to be the Oxford of Australia, and there are some things it does well - like conferring ceremonies.

Instead of one giant batch-graduation, Melbourne have two sessions per year - March and August. For about three weeks in both, they run two ceremonies every Saturday, graduating a different faculty - approximately three hundred students - each ceremony. They keep things short - speeches are no more than five or ten minutes - and personal - each graduate has their moment of attention as they walk across the stage alone to applause.

Because there are only three hundred other students, each of whom is individually recognised, it feels like something that matters, something that few other people have done. There's a sense of importance and respect to the process, even though you spend most of your time remembering what you have to do: step, doff, smile, step, step, step, shake, take, turn, doff, smile, step, step, step, leave. You leave there feeling like your achievement matters.

Making it cheap

In contrast, two years ago, I attended the conferring ceremony at RMIT, both for my brother's PhD, and my first masters degree:

RMIT's conferring ceremony is, frankly, a cattle run. They hire out the Telstra Dome for an evening, and have eight (or is it twelve?) stations around the edge, and a central rotating dais. The academics and PhD students sit up on the dias (my brother spent the evening updating me via SMS on the progression of his 'spinny' time; I spent my time playing sudoku on my phone.) and the rest of the four thousand graduates are split into their faculties at each of the stations.

They read your name, but the audience can't hear. They're so far away they can barely see you - they have to watch you on the projector beside your station instead. You sit in plastic garden chairs with about three hundred others, most of whom are spending the occasion reading a book, texting friends or playing a DS or similar. When your row is called, you line up in a queue stretching around the back of your station. You shuffle forward through a stream of ushers who check your academic dress, tell you to stop fidgeting and to smile. As your name flashes up with your degree, you walk down the short red-astroturf ramp, shake, take and turn, walk down the second ramp and return to your seat. If there's applause, you're too far away to hear it, and the audience is busy getting hot dogs from the stands outside anyway. Then you wait for everyone else to finish.

The ceremony - conferring four thousand degrees - takes roughly four and a half hours. At the end, they invite everyone to clamber over the barriers and enjoy "free" (you already paid for it with your ceremony fee) beer, wine, champagne and soft drink on the grass. It has all the sense of occasion, class and personal achievement of a cow pat.

I've attended it twice, now, and while my last masters would make it a third, I'll be graduating in absentia. I'm not going.  I'd rather celebrate it in a way that actually means something.

Making it for yourself

How you celebrate your achievement - whether it be finishing a novel, selling a short story or simply paying off your mortgage - will impact a lot on the enjoyment you gain from that achievement. And just like movies, books, food, clothes and music, different things work for different people.

It's especially important to decide how to celebrate the things that don't have external recognition, though. Finishing that chapter, finishing that draft, submitting that query - find something that says to you "hey, I did something good, here", and use it. Without celebration, a sense of achievement is much harder to grasp, and reaching milestones and completing tasks are much more difficult. Celebrating your achievements help you reach the next one, especially when times get tough.

So - how do you celebrate?

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