Graduation and Next Steps Planner

Who this is for

The last term and the months after it, on one page. Ceremony tasks sit beside the applications, references and plans for what comes next, and a checklist covers the practical side of leaving: accommodation, accounts, the library and your records.

Final-year students planning the ceremony, the move out and the first steps into a job, further study or time out, and anyone helping them keep track.

What this helps you track

• Ceremony tasks such as registering, gown hire and guest tickets, with deadlines
• Each next-step goal broken into an action, a contact and a deadline
• Which references and applications are still waiting on someone
• The admin of leaving: accommodation, accounts, library and records
• Everything due before and after graduation in one place

How to use it

1. Write your course, expected graduation date and ceremony date at the top.
2. Go through the ceremony tasks, add any your university lists, and put your own deadline against each one.
3. In the next steps table, give each goal one concrete action, the person or office to contact and a deadline, and update the status as it moves.
4. Work through the leaving checklist in your last weeks, ticking items off as they are done.
5. Fill it in on paper or in the browser version, which saves in your own browser, and look at it each week of the final term.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The online version keeps what you enter in your own browser and builds the completed PDF on your device.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

Where do the ceremony deadlines come from?

From your university's graduation information, which sets its own dates for registering, tickets and gown hire. The planner supplies no dates; copy them in from what you are sent and add any tasks it mentions that are not listed.

What counts as a next step?

Anything you are working towards after the course: a job or graduate scheme, further study, a visa or work permit, a move, a gap year. Break each into the next single action so the status column shows what is actually stuck.

Why a leaving checklist?

Because loose ends are easy to miss once you have gone: a library fine blocking your transcript, a deposit not returned, post going to an old address. Ticking them off before you leave saves chasing them from somewhere else.

Does it cover what the university must provide?

No. It records your own tasks. What the university issues, when and at what cost is set by the university; check its guidance and the rules where you are.