Sometimes, the people who deserve your gratitude the least are the ones who expect it the most.

That’s where this PhD student found themselves after spending years overcoming one obstacle after another to earn a doctorate.

Unfortunately, the university didn’t make the journey any easier, and the problems kept piling up along the way.

Even so, there was just one thing left to do before the thesis could finally be submitted.

That’s when the university required every student to include an acknowledgment section thanking the people who helped make the project possible.

Instead of writing the kind of message everyone expected, though, this student decided to take a very different approach.

Let’s see how it turned out.

The university made me write an acknowledgement in my thesis, so I did

A weary me was sitting in front of my laptop, staring at the requirements for submitting the PhD thesis to the university.

I had finished the main text to the satisfaction of my two supervisors, and I just needed to check the nitty-gritty formatting requirements from the university.

Among the items missing was the acknowledgment section. The university even made a big fuss out of it, stating that it was mandatory to thank everyone who has contributed to the success of the thesis.

Unfortunately, the journey wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for him.

I couldn’t help thinking about how bitter the journey was.

It started well — I got a scholarship, performed well and had a great reputation in teaching — but it was a fallout after my supervisor retired due to unforeseen circumstances. Research funds dried out.

The school scammed me of 10 grands from equipment purchase because of the errors of the administrative staff. They took away the only space I could use for research (which was just a desk) and left me figuring it out myself.

In the end I could only finish the whole research on my own from the cash I earned from escorting (it was a successful career but that’s another story). And then I needed to thank them to not make myself look like an ungrateful brat.

Then, he came up with an idea.

And I came up with an idea. Instead of writing a short note, I dialed my gratefulness to 11.

Most other PhD students wrote 1-2 pages, and I made mine 3 pages long.

I thanked almost everyone extensively — my supervisors, my family, my patrons, the student counselor and even the flight school I attended — and mentioned the details of the support they gave me and what I learned from them.

He saved the best for last.

At the very end of the 3-page essay, I dropped a very dry paragraph acknowledging the university, thanking them for the wake-up call for my development into another career and giving me an experience to foster autonomy by doing my own maintenance works and sourcing own fundings.

Now this PhD thesis has passed the final validation and by university policy, this thesis will be forever publicly available in their library and online repository.

And I am pretty sure a few of the juniors are going to have a look as a reference of how to write their acknowledgements even though they have zero interest in the body text.

Too funny! Hey, you can’t say the university didn’t ask for it.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who volunteered to help promote a church event for free, then was surprised to find she had to still pay admission to get in.

Let’s see if any of the readers over at Reddit relate with his story.

This person did something similar with their acknowledgement.

Wonder how many people caught it.

It’s probably still frowned upon.

For this person, their acknowledgement was their Oscars.

It’s one thing to thank people who genuinely helped you along the way.

However, it’s another to feel obligated to praise an organization that created so many of the obstacles in the first place.

So, rather than writing something that wasn’t true, this student found a creative way to be honest while still following the university’s rules.

His logic is hard to argue with.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman whose HR department advised her to quit if she was that unhappy, so she did and found herself in a role reversal years later.