one cool eastern bloc idea was having a little graduation pin you could wear on your uniform to show you went to whichever university. in the west you just have to agonisingly introduce that into every conversation

I also think they’re very pretty. here’s state university, medical university, technical university and flight school respectively

there are a ton of these and I think they rock

anyway because in the Soviet Union pretty much everyone technically had some kind of work uniform and all the cultural activities were state controlled, all of them could go together on the same thing

not at all uncommon to see both a paratrooper and a lawyer wearing, say, a badge for sporting activities on their uniform jacket

I kind of like that, I think it’s aspirational and holistic to recognise that there is like meritorious service in doing theatre stuff in your spare time when your job is working on the railroad

other fun graduation pins I found:

agricultural university!

fine arts!

social sciences!

communications!

artillery!

the merchant navy!

Ural Polytechnic!

and then the rare MVD and rarer still KGB academy

East Germany had them too but curiously only for military/paramilitary institutions, and usually in a triangular shape. Here’s the military academy, stasi academy, naval college and military medical college ones

plus as a bonus the police academy one