It’s that time of year again when so many students around the world are handing in their graduation thesis. This important academic achievement tests the knowledge they gained during the years spent studying and allows students to finally reap the reward of their hard work. To commemorate this important milestone, students are getting creative. Recently, a 26-year-old grad student, Sarah Whelan Curtis, stole the spotlight online by doing a hilarious maternity photo shoot after finally ‘giving birth’ to her thesis.

(h/t: Yahoo)

More info: twitter.com

Curtis, who is doing her Ph.D. at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia recently finished her thesis on epigenetics that took her 4 years to write. She broke the news by doing a maternity photo shoot with her work and sharing it on Twitter.

Her photos quickly went viral with many students relating to the idea of comparing writing a thesis to a very long labor.

Curtis told Yahoo Lifestyle that her family made remarks concerning her future plans, “I have a lot of nieces and nephews, and my mom told me, ‘Either get a Ph.D. or give me a grandchild. I got my doctorate,” she said.

After seeing so many people sharing their newborn photos, Curtis came up with a funny idea. When her thesis was due, she grabbed a baby blanket, wrapped her thesis in it, and had her husband take pictures of her ‘newborn’. So many people loved the idea that since the 4th of June, her tweet has gathered more than 252k likes and almost 50k retweets. Curtis received a lot of praise and prompted graduate students to share photos of their own ‘babies’

Here’s how people reacted

Image credits: stephenablack

Image credits: _nonabitoalmare

Image credits: AlexanderJSator

Image credits: 3Dmattias

Image credits: OxfordDiplomat

Image credits: SarahMackAttack

Image credits: OxfordDiplomat

Image credits: HinSLC84

Image credits: MarkBoslough

Image credits: joydevision

Image credits: lucysunman

Image credits: queenruby81