Graduating with a degree of difficulty

Missing memories

Ahmat Tohniyaz, 25, a final year hydropower engineering student at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, also regrets missing his graduation ceremony.

He stayed on campus during the lockdown and had planned to go home after his graduation ceremony this month.

However, he returned home to Aksu, Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, on May 16 after accepting a job offer and being asked to start work immediately.

The graduation ceremony that he had dreamed about since he was a freshman had been moved online, the university announced.

In late May, he presented his defense of his dissertation to five professors via a video conference.

In front of the camera, Ahmat and a dozen other students talked about their dissertations and presented images and graphs on a computer screen to back their arguments.

"The whole dissertation defense process took about 20 minutes and luckily I passed and only needed to make small changes to my dissertation," Ahmat said.

"However, one of my biggest regrets is being unable to attend the graduation ceremony and take pictures with my friends and teachers wearing the cap and gown."

Ahmat said he had imagined taking many graduation pictures with his friends and classmates at campus and city landmarks. However, he was unable to see any of them before he went home in May as the university had not reopened.

"The last time I saw them was in January. It will be hard for us to meet again as we will go to different places after graduation," he said.

The school sent his graduation gown, diploma and graduation certificate to him via express delivery. Ahmat said he plans to take selfies of himself in the gown and photo shop the images into pictures of landmark buildings and locations.

Ye Dongnan, 22, a senior student at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, said she and other students had created a free miniapp on WeChat that produces graduation photos that appear to be taken on campus.

The photo-service app allows students, and their friends, to insert their faces on avatar bodies in photos taken outside university buildings.

Within eight hours of the app being launched on May 20, it had attracted more than 10,000 users, she said.

"We did not do any advertising for the app," Ye said.

"Students started to use the app after they saw the cartoon-style graduation photos on WeChat."

The creators of the app later added iconic buildings from other tertiary institutes, such as Wuhan University and Central China Normal University.

More than 50,000 graduates have used the app to create personalized graduation photos, Ye said.