The Judge said, 'Son, what is your alibi?

Our Director writes:

Diary of a Mature Student, Week One Point Five

I thought you might like to read a bit more about a typical day-in-the-life of a mature student, since posting has kind of slowed down recently. So let's start with last Tuesday, which was fairly typical.

6:30am
Wake up. Prepare breakfast and packed lunch. Do various necessary household things.

7:15am
Leave house while still under cover of darkness. Begin journey by car.

7:32am
Turn left, where possible.

8:00am
Arrive at city park and ride scheme. Wait for bus.

8:10
Continue journey by bus.

8:30
Arrive at university. Proceed to library, and find it devoid of students. Enjoy peace and quiet but a nagging feeling that everything's gone a bit I am Legend until other people turn up.

Attempt to locate several books, with a success rate of approximately 60%.

9:30
Leave library for first lecture. Cram into 'intimate setting' of the lecture room. Resist urge to sit in the centre of the front row like several other mature students who are present. Begin to wonder if this is any indication that I am a bad person.

11:30
Lecture finishes.

11:45
Lunch.

12:30
Return to library or, if needed, computer room. Continue studying until eyes cannot focus.

12:45 just kidding 14:00
Attempt to locate academic advisor's office.

14:20
Locate advisor's office. Attempt to locate any indication of advisor's office hours.

14:30
Find sheet advising of office hours in a (possibly deliberately) obscure location.
Discover advisor's office hours are two hours on a Monday, or, as we prefer to think of it, the only day there are currently no lectures, and thus, no reason to attend on campus.

Decide advisor is a Machiavellian schemer, or simply doesn't like undergraduates*.

15:30
Begin journey home.

16:30
Arrive at destination.
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*This may actually have more truth to it than the faculty would like to admit. Consider that in our orientation and in our first lecture we were cheerfully informed that one in ten of us are statistically likely to undergo some trial, hardship, illness or other problem that forces us to drop out after the first year. On this course, that means approximately 20-25 students are statistically likely to just disappear in around eight months time.

This means over a faculty of twelve advisors that each will have at least two students who may not come back. And, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, you can't tell which ones it'll be. So you can go to all the effort of, oh, say, learning their names, or you can wait and see who makes the grade and who doesn't and work from there.

Of course, this is a highly cynical and totally untrue observation of the situation. I've already expressed my opinions on the very concept of Office Hours, so there's no point revisiting it.

But look at it this way; even if I were a young person, and lived on campus, the likelihood that I would go in just to see my advisor on a day when nothing else was going on is kind of slim. When you factor in a two-and-a-half hour round trip just for a ten-minute meeting, then, well, no. Probably not going to happen.

This means that, at least until next semester, it's incredibly unlikely that I'll even meet my advisor, as she doesn't teach any of the first semester classes and I won't be in during her office hours.

If all of this sounds like I have a serious down on the joyful academic process, please reconsider, because I don't. I just can't. I'm incredibly lucky; I get to go back to university to retrain in a field I love and so far, it's working out really well. The youth of today tolerate me, and, in some cases, may even like me (although this is yet to be scientifically verified). The lecture program is great, the studies are too. I study what I study, I love my classes, I've possibly even got a crazy teacher who wear's dark glasses, things are getting great, and... They're only getting better.

Just don't expect your average mature student to unquestioningly accept academic protocols, that's all...