my college does not do graduation ceremonies until may but i will have completed my requirements by dec do i?.

Question

do i still get my diploma in december or do i have to wait until may?

Answer 1

I don't know of any school which gives out the real diploma at the ceremony, even if you graduate in May. There is too much likelihood of handing the wrong diploma to the wrong person, and in all the excitement of the ceremony, it would be inevitable that someone would lose the document! You will get it mailed to you at some point after it has been verified that you graduated, probably by March at the latest.

By the way, you didn't ask, but don't do what I did and skip the ceremony because you are not graduating in May. I never cared about these things and thought it would be foolish to come back for graduation. I did this three times. It was only with my law school graduation, at age 45, that I went through the ceremony, just because I had graduated with the rest of my class. One look at the pride in my parents' faces made me embarrassed about how selfishly I had looked at these things in the past. The graduation isn't about you; it is about those who saw you through the process. If you have family with whom you are in any way close, please, go to your graduation!

Answer 2

You get your diploma mailed to you in January/February, but if you want to go through the whole convocation ceremony, yeah, you have to wait until May.
I graduated this past May and a lot of the other people near me finished their program in December and when they got on stage for the diploma presentation, they just got a plain piece of paper with their name on it - they got their actual degree in January.