h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Last week our eldest passed his Ph D exam with flying colours. To explain the German education system: They have just started introducing a system, to align with the rest of the world, of Bachelor and Masters exams. However, my son left school at the cusp of the changeover so he still had the option of the centuries-old system, whereby he can become Herr Doktor in the Central European sense.

This old system was not structured into "years", as they would be in a British university. You don't really know when you start exactly how long you'll be. You can choose the courses you take, provided you cover a set amount in a set group of subjects, and you can take as long or as short about it as you want. My mother always drives me mad, asking me how long the one or the other of them still has at university. They don't know, and if they did, they're not telling me.

However, the middle one is nearly finished, he hopes, and the youngest one is trying to get on as fast as he can. This is - we hope - out of consideration for their father, who retires this year and won't be able to pay their health insurance and allowances with the accustomed ease for much longer.

Anyway, less of that. No. 1 is organised, works to a plan, and got finished exactly as he had intended to. He had his exam last Thursday. It was a good hour of a presentation on his thesis, with questions asked by a panel of professors, some of which were on subjects way out of his comfort zone, but an electrical engineer has to know lots of physics, maths and probably a lot of things I can't even pronounce. Nuclear fission? Ultrasound? Ultrasound is actually quite close to his heart as he had just been for a scan with his wife a couple of days before the exam. No indication yet whether I'm going to be a grandma or a grandpa.

Well - despite pouring rain, we had a lovely afternoon, and No. 1 son was grinning all over his face when we arrived. I had baked some sausage rolls and his friends had organised some and they were standing around drinking when we arrived. We got lost on the campus and arrived a bit late. He was cross about that but the elation and relief at it all being over soon came back to his face and his friends were so adorable - and very admiring of his performance (they were allowed to sit in on the exam).

The sausage rolls were very welcome. I had even brought some little flower arrangements to decorate the table, but we didn't unpack those, as we arrived so late, actually, that some people were already leaving.

I said he passed with flying colours - he really did pass with distinction (summa cum laude) - the second only ever to do so in his faculty.

Don't know how he did it, with a mum too stupid to even navigate across the campus. Must all come from his father's side.

Wow, no wonder you are proud of him. to him and both you and your husband for raising such a brilliant child. Summa cun laude--in Germany is really great. Fortunately they are not party to the grade inflation that is invading academia here.

that's brilliant - and don't do yourself down, you are a big part of that too.
Congratulations to all of you!

Wonderful news, well done!

Brilliant! Congratulations to him and to you!

A wonderful Mum deserves such wonderful sons!

Congratulations!

Thanks everyone. I'll pass it on. (He's the only one in the family who really "gets" h2g2.)

Congratulations! :D

Well done, Trillian's Grandchild!