Durham University has its own traditions and when you come to Durham for the first time and look at your schedule for the first week – which will be full of orientation events- , you will come across an event called “matriculation”. Actually, you might even hear the verb “to matriculate”.
So, let’s clear things up here. Matriculation ceremony is an event which has the purpose of officializing one’s status as a Durham student. Whether one is a first year or a student here on exchange for one year, they are a new student to this university and this is sort of a welcoming ritual. They will have to first get a robe from their College upon arrival. Remember the robe Harry Potter wears when going to class in the first movie? Yeah, it’s similar. Second, they will dress casual and put on this robe on the day of the matriculation ceremony. Everyone will then be led with their college mates to the cathedral and seated on one of the rows in this beautiful 11thcentury edifice. I will not spoil what is going on during the ceremony but I will say that this is probably a demonstration of the more traditional British side of this institution and of the high status of Durham University. In any case, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
The Durham Exchange 