2020 CSU graduations postponed due to COVID-19 but graduates still find a way to celebrate

Having completed her bachelor of social work in February 2020, she travelled more than four hours from her home in Wollongong to get to the Wagga campus of Charles Sturt University and get dressed in her regalia.

While the university will be postponing its face-to-face graduation ceremonies until next year, Ms Delaney was unwilling to wait for her big day.

"I don't know what's going to happen with COVID and I finished in February so I thought I'd at least come and get the photos done this year," she said.

In place of the usual graduations, the university has offered its 6000 graduating students the opportunity to hire a gown for on-campus graduation portraits.

For Ms Delaney, who had her photoshoot on Monday, the experience ended up being far more intimate and personal than a regular graduation ceremony would render.

Despite the disappointment of losing out on her formal ceremony, she said, the occasion and its magnitude were not marred.

"We had to book in for a time to come in [for the photoshoot]. I think we're all getting used to signing in wherever we go now, so that was really no different," Ms Delaney said.

"[But] I don't think this year has been what people expected in any way."

Over the past five years, Ms Delaney has been completing her degree online while working in Wollongong.

Having also finished her study before the pandemic really hit, she admits she was fortunate to not be too disrupted by COVID-19.

"COVID didn't affect me too much, it only affected what I did after [finishing my degree," she said.

"There I was thinking I could go out on weekends when I don't have any study to do but then I couldn't do that."

She had been looking forward to celebrating her degree's completion with her cohort of students. Some of whom she is yet to meet in person given her studies were completed almost entirely online.

"I have a few close friends who finished just before me," Ms Delaney said.

"It would have been nice to graduate with them, but when you study online you do end up finishing at different stages, we may not have been together anyway."