An anecdote regarding of Academia varies more than you think it does: We are have a defence in our group tomorrow and one of my colleagues almost had brought eggs and flour to throw at the defendant assuming that this was a world-wide custom.

@Wrzlprmft why did you say anything. That would have been most excellent.

@Wrzlprmft We should add a new line to the faq: "In some countries degrees are celebrated in extreme ways".

@Wrzlprmft That's incredible, I can't even imagine the reaction that would cause in an unsuspecting room

@StrongBad In retrospect, we thought this as well. However, we gave everything away by our initial queries when this was brought up: “We are really talking about chicken menstruate and ground grains, are we?”

@Wrzlprmft what country are they from and have you verified their claims?

@StrongBad Argentina and no.

@Wrzlprmft this link bustle.com/p/… says "trashing" happens in Argentina and Italy @MassimoOrtolano

@StrongBad No, in Italy it's not common at all: as far as I know only one city in Italy (Padua) has some rather extreme traditions (there, the trees along the street across the university host posters of naked graduates in the snow or worse all-year round). But for the rest of Italy, graduations are quite standard. Moreover, there's a sharp distinction between Master's degree and Phd's degrees.

At the PhD level, one usually just drinks something with their friends who attended the defence or have a dinner in the night.

Some other fancy graduation ceremonies happen within those who are affiliated to the Goliardia, a kind of student's association with particular rules, but not very widespread.

When I got my master's degree, I then had 4 or 5 graduation parties in the following weeks. When I defended my PhD, I had already a position and we concluded like: see you tomorrow at work.