"This Band of Gold is Your Band of Friends": StFX Students Remark on Their X-Rings

About a month ago, StFX hosted its annual X-Ring ceremony. This is where students receive their rings—an important symbol to those who graduate—and venture into their final semester at this school.

I received mine this year and it was a relieving achievement, especially after four long years of studying towards an honours degree in history. The ceremony was extravagant, with over 1000 students receiving their rings. There were many speakers in attendance to congratulate us on our achievements, from faculty to students. After a brief period of visiting our first-year residences (Go FX Hall!) everyone prepared for that nights Super Sub at the Golden X Inn.

So, this weekend I popped over to Mulroney Hall, a popular study spot, to ask some X-Ring recipients what they thought of their rings.

“Its pretty cool,” says Ethan, a Psychology major, “I never expected I would get this far and get my ring. It’s really shiny, it encapsulates what it means to be a Xaverian at the end of the day. I’m really proud of it, hopefully I can show it off to the world wherever I go.”

Ethan echoes the pride in Xaverian spirit, a pride that anyone who’s witnessed a live speech by Andy Hakin would understand. The school often emphasises the importance of being part of a larger worldwide community that graduated from StFX.

Harrison, one of our own writers at The Xaverian Weekly, also obtained an X-Ring this year. “It makes my finger break out. But you know what, I thought about it a lot. I had a lot of foolishness before I came up here this year. Before I got it, I looked at the X-Ring like ‘y’know what, I’m going to have this for the rest of my life and it’s going to symbolize the failures of my life that happened here.’ But in the end, I was sitting in the ceremony and going to the Super Sub after, this ring is friendship, this ring in community, this ring is late-night studying, late nights in the library. This band of gold is your band of friends. You’re going to see them everywhere, I see them like they’re beacons, and now I got my own, and it makes my finger break out [chuckles].”

Harrison’s (somewhat comical) perspective of the X-Ring is true. The X-Ring is recognized widely across Canada and the world. Dr. Hakin remarked upon this in his speeches at last month’s ceremony.

Aaron, a History major, says “I feel like you’re wearing the milestone on your hand and its cool, personally for me it represents the mental and physical struggle of being dedicated to school and working to do something, then finally getting it and you’re not even at the finish line. But it does motivate you at the same time to keep going (…) Yeah, I think it represents the effort going in to getting the degree.”

Chris, who is in the Math honours program and received his X-Ring last year, talked about how finishing his last semester while having an X-Ring feels, “It represents that milestone, it doesn’t really feel real. It just feels like a lot of struggles and then you get your X-Ring and you’re like, oh wow.” He explains, “I was talking to my friend, he found that his friends who got the X-ring, after they got it, their motivation to do school just went way down. It feels too close to the finish line. But I got mine last year, so I didn’t really get that too bad because I knew I still had a full extra year to get my honours.”

Chris touches on how one can start to lose steam after receiving their X-Ring. This is a common thing, partially fueled by finally getting the ring and being so close to the end of the semester. For those of us who received our rings, we are in the final stretch of our degrees. Many of us will be heading right into jobs, others will return to StFX’s famous Bachelor of Education program, and some will be moving onto graduate studies. Regardless of where we end up, we will be carrying the X-Ring with us all the way.