JADE Ripley was accompanied by a special guest at her University of Newcastle graduation: her unborn daughter, due in 10 weeks.
"It's been nice to bring her along," said Ms Ripley, who received a Master's of Nursing.
"I'm feeling really good and relieved to be all done."
She said the program helped her secure her role as a clinical nurse consultant at Sydney Children's Hospital in Westmead.
"It was for career progression, I wanted to enhance myself and better myself," she said.
Ms Ripley decided to study nursing after a mission trip to Thailand about 15 years ago.
"I didn't feel I could offer anything, so I came home, studied and then have since gone back [to Tonga and Tanzania] with Open Heart International and been able to volunteer, doing cardiac surgery with kids."
It was also a family affair for Wiradjuri man Matt West, who graduated with his PhD in podiatry on the same day his mum Lee-Anne Ahsee received her Bachelor of Nursing.
"It's really really exciting," Dr West said.
"Mum studied part time, worked, raised three kids, went from a bridging course to graduate and that is the inspiring and hard thing... I got a PhD scholarship and was able to devote my time to my studies and that was my job, which was really exciting and really fun, but when I look over and see all the work my Mum put in over so many years it just makes me so proud and so happy."
He studied the differences in diabetes-related lower limb health outcomes among Aboriginal and non Aboriginal people.
He integrated outreach clinics in Wellington, Redfern and on the Central Coast into his research.
Friends Heather Murray and Nikita Panicker felt reflective after receiving their PhDs in Medical Biochemistry.
"I'm super proud," Dr Murray said.
"I loved what I was doing and I was sad to submit my thesis, I cried, it was almost like grieving and like you were letting go of your baby."
Dr Panicker said she felt happy and emotional.
"It took so many years and was blood, sweat and tears."
The pair completed their undergraduate and honours degrees in biomedical science before their PhDs.
"I love learning and love that I get to apply that to something that can produce real world outcomes," Dr Murray said.
"Looking back, the amount of skills, confidence and the ability to carry myself like I do now, I wouldn't have gained through anything else," Dr Panicker said.
"Plus the ability to actually help people in real time." Dr Murray is now a post doctoral research fellow who has received $600,000 in state government funding for leukaemia research.
Dr Panicker, whose PhD was in breast cancer and embryonic development, will soon start work as a post doctoral researcher in endometriosis research.
Celestine Karonei's graduation with a Bachelor of Nursing comes just days before she starts work at Maitland Hospital on Monday.
"I'm excited and nervous at the same time," she said. "Someone's life is in your hands."
Ms Karonei said she was inspired to study nursing after she was hospitalised as a child in her native Kenya.
"The nurses were really nice," she said. "I thought 'Why can I not do it?' It gives me that fulfilment."
She juggled her studies and unpaid hospital placements with being a youth worker.
