EDITOR'S NOTE: This was supposed to be published directly after the last entry, but Blogger decided this just wasn't, apparently, the done thing. Anyway...
Our Director Writes;
Diary of a Mature Student: Semester 2, Week 2; Addendum
Of course, the last entry looks incredibly churlish. But hopefully the point gets across.
Because the course I'm doing doesn't quite fill out the course units spectrum, we get plunked into other courses from other fields with relative impunity sometimes. Last year we were left in a course slightly to basic for the field students and slightly too advanced for our course.
This year, they've stuck us in a room with two hundred other students from a very popular course and, well, just left us to get on with it. I say us; I recognised something like ten out of the two hundred as being from my course, so there's either been a prodigious drop-off rate or something odd's going on.
The other thing is that it's a course that my previous degree was in. I don't plan to mention this at any point during the proceedings, because how the hell does that work? "Hi, I'm Eton, and I'm already qualified in this area - I'm just doing this for the laughs."
Kind of funny, kind of... Well... Patronising.
What was kind of funny, however, was being - thanks to a 66% dropout rate in the male student population of my seminar group - the only person of a male persuasion there.
Me.
The lecturer (a lovely lady, for those keeping score.)
Twenty-one eighteen-and-nineteen year old girls.
Hmm.
In all total honesty; what exactly does one do in that situation?
I opted for sitting fairly quietly and letting them all get on with it, because frankly it seemed like the safest option. Besides which, what exactly would I have to offer someone from the generation before me other than a searing insight into a time before downloadable content?
It's one of those tricky social situations. For I am not a particularly manly man's man; I'm a geek, and proud of it. Hell, you have to be a bit of a geek to study Film. They put it in the UCAS requirements and everything. And god knows I don't want to end up some strange Steve Buscemi-a-like character in the class. So contributing occasionally but otherwise sitting quietly seems to be, for me, the way forward.
Sunday 31 January 2010
This is a gift, it comes with a price
Our Director Writes
Diary of a Mature Student, Semester 2, Week 2
There are some things about being a mature student that you just don't talk about, it seems.
Then again, they're more or less the same as any other time in your life. There are some funny moments, too; this week I had to submit proof of the qualifications that got me my place at my university, which meant, basically, submitting a copy of my degree certificate to prove I was eligible to study for my degree.
This is one of the main problems; I can't find part-time work because of an odd kind of situation. The basic conversation runs like this:
"Hi, I'm looking for some part time work while I study."
"Okay, what qualifications do you have?"
"Well, I have my degree insomething not that relevant and my GCSEs and A levels."
"Oh, you already have a degree? Why would you want to work here?"
"Well, I'm just looking for-"
"Sorry, we think you're overqualified."
'Overqualified' hides a multitude of sins. On one hand it's "well, why would you stay here for any length of time with that qualification?"; on another hand, it's "what happened in your life that you can't use these qualifications for something better?"; and on a theoretical third hand, there's always the question of intimidation.
Now, intimidation is just asinine. If you're intimidated by someone with a degree, stop it, stop it right goddamn now, because it's pointless. In all my time since graduation I haven't put the letters after my name once. The only time I've had to use my degree certificate is in submitting for further academic courses; no employer has ever asked to see it. And yet I was treated differently - at least, at first - for being a graduate. It meant nothing other than the occasional higher expectation, because I remained for four or so years consistently the lowest-paid person in the building, but there was something there somehow.
So I can't find work, which means living off what savings I'd put together before being kicked out of my work last year with a cheery goodbye and the promise of a reference. And this is what I mean by the things you don't talk about as a mature student.
It means smiling every time someone asks you how the course is going, and being incredibly enthusiastic about it, because how could you not be? You're doing something you're passionate about! You're doing what you love! Any sign of unhappiness just isn't done, old chap.
[As a sidebar, I am happy. I'm incredibly happy; I border on ecstatic during termtime, because I am doing what I love, so this might sound churlish; but it's not this that's the problem, it's the lack of any possible other answer than every day I wake up I feel blessed. Although, right now, I do. Sorry. This is rambling a little.]
Sometimes I want to speak the truth to people, just a little, to see what they might say.
"You know what being a mature student means? It means living at home with parental units because I can't dream of affording anything else. It means living of charity and benificence because I can't find any work. It means a negotiated kind of independence where most everything I think of doing means clearance by someone. It means not necessarily being able to afford anything new for a long, long time. Clothes? DVDs? Gadgets? Forget it. Make do and mend."
Look at it this way; at least my clothes that aren't retro now will be by the end of the course.
This is just idle complaining, though. Because it's a small price to pay to do something I love. It's a miniscule price, really.
But of course, it needs paying.
Diary of a Mature Student, Semester 2, Week 2
There are some things about being a mature student that you just don't talk about, it seems.
Then again, they're more or less the same as any other time in your life. There are some funny moments, too; this week I had to submit proof of the qualifications that got me my place at my university, which meant, basically, submitting a copy of my degree certificate to prove I was eligible to study for my degree.
This is one of the main problems; I can't find part-time work because of an odd kind of situation. The basic conversation runs like this:
"Hi, I'm looking for some part time work while I study."
"Okay, what qualifications do you have?"
"Well, I have my degree in
"Oh, you already have a degree? Why would you want to work here?"
"Well, I'm just looking for-"
"Sorry, we think you're overqualified."
'Overqualified' hides a multitude of sins. On one hand it's "well, why would you stay here for any length of time with that qualification?"; on another hand, it's "what happened in your life that you can't use these qualifications for something better?"; and on a theoretical third hand, there's always the question of intimidation.
Now, intimidation is just asinine. If you're intimidated by someone with a degree, stop it, stop it right goddamn now, because it's pointless. In all my time since graduation I haven't put the letters after my name once. The only time I've had to use my degree certificate is in submitting for further academic courses; no employer has ever asked to see it. And yet I was treated differently - at least, at first - for being a graduate. It meant nothing other than the occasional higher expectation, because I remained for four or so years consistently the lowest-paid person in the building, but there was something there somehow.
So I can't find work, which means living off what savings I'd put together before being kicked out of my work last year with a cheery goodbye and the promise of a reference. And this is what I mean by the things you don't talk about as a mature student.
It means smiling every time someone asks you how the course is going, and being incredibly enthusiastic about it, because how could you not be? You're doing something you're passionate about! You're doing what you love! Any sign of unhappiness just isn't done, old chap.
[As a sidebar, I am happy. I'm incredibly happy; I border on ecstatic during termtime, because I am doing what I love, so this might sound churlish; but it's not this that's the problem, it's the lack of any possible other answer than every day I wake up I feel blessed. Although, right now, I do. Sorry. This is rambling a little.]
Sometimes I want to speak the truth to people, just a little, to see what they might say.
"You know what being a mature student means? It means living at home with parental units because I can't dream of affording anything else. It means living of charity and benificence because I can't find any work. It means a negotiated kind of independence where most everything I think of doing means clearance by someone. It means not necessarily being able to afford anything new for a long, long time. Clothes? DVDs? Gadgets? Forget it. Make do and mend."
Look at it this way; at least my clothes that aren't retro now will be by the end of the course.
This is just idle complaining, though. Because it's a small price to pay to do something I love. It's a miniscule price, really.
But of course, it needs paying.
Monday 18 January 2010
From across the great divide
Our Director Writes:
Diary of a Mature Student: the run-up to the new academic year
I've come to the conclusion that life would have been a lot simpler, if, ten years ago, I'd woken up with the burning desire to be an accountant.
Note, from the last entry, that even while slightly drunk, I can still look up the GDP of small island nations. Think of this what you will.
But, seriously, as long as there's money, the world needs accountants. And they do fairly well out of it if they even have a modicum of financial ability; accountancy would have been the way forward, ten years ago.
If I'd chosen that path - if I'd even thought it remotely the right thing to do - things would be very different now, let me tell you. For one, I'd be able to afford better clothes. I'd hopefully have found some lovely, accountancy-tolerating lady and settled down somewhere suburban. Hell, by now I might even have children, and I could be teaching my youngest the heady joy of balancing figures and tax-deductible income.
Instead, something in me decided ten years ago to just freewheel - or, more accurately, free - and go with the flow. Hence, a humanities degree. Humanities degrees, in the fullness of things, are like filmmakers; they benefit no-one. The recipient spends a lifetime justifying just why their degree is useful in any field other than, say, teaching or perhaps, at a push, proofreading. Anyone who comes into contact with a humanities graduate gets this glossy look in their eyes as if to say you spent three years doing what, exactly?
But a humanities degree, I've worked out, is just a useful way of keeping dangerous minds off the streets and inculcating sound principles on their strange little minds. I don't mean dangerous minds in the sense that yeah, daddy-oh, they're going to go out there and change the world, I mean dangerous in the sense that lava is dangerous when it's molten but solid when it's cooled, if that makes any particular sense. All these eighteen-year-olds I see here at the moment are so, so sweet but sometimes I want to sit them down and gently tell them that the world outside the education system is a dark, and often annoying, place.
I didn't enjoy my first go on the degree merry-go-round, in case you hadn't inferred that from this blog so far. The first year was confused - and confusing - and rushed and full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, leaving a lot of people completely unprepared for the seriousness of the second year. The third year was the only time I started to actually appreciate just what the hell was actually going on, and, more importantly, appreciate exactly what the point of study is.
Kind of.
And then the real world, shiny and cuttingly bright, beckoned, and suddenly the student overdraft needs paying and there aren't any jobs that pay enough to live any kind of fully independent life, and it all goes, quite frankly, to... No, that's not quite true. I paid my student overdraft and cultivated an odd little kind of independence from the odd little job I found and ended up staying at for about half a decade.
Now... I'm back, baby, and the undergraduate education system seems strikingly different to the one I left. It's a lot like returning to a workplace you left years ago to find everything changed; natural, but unsettling.
Take the marking system, for instance. Old style was 'pass 75% of your modules per year and you'll get a degree, if not a great one'. New style seems to be 'pass everything but don't worry about the grades in your first year; shit, 41% will do, kid, just so long as you pass. And by the way, we don't actually trust you to do independent study, so there are weekly negative-equity tests to pass - you get sweet F.A. if you do them but we'll dock lots of percentage points from you if you don't...'
It seems like an odd little way of preparing the young people of today for the sudden second-year seriousness of grades that actually matter, but hey, maybe it actually works. I don't know. I've been trying to convince my contemporaries that doing well now is something to be proud of, but I'm not quite sure it's getting through.
I feel a lot like a Cassandra, except for the 'most beautiful' part. (Or, strictly speaking, the 'daughter part. But hey.) I'm not a shining example of the merits of academia - pretty far from it, actually - but I do want at least one person I count as a friend here to take a little notice of my lessons in How Not To Fuck Things Up, from Crow, who has a P.h.D in the subject.
Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe not.
One thing that entertains me; upon applying for this course, I was asked to provide evidence of my most recent qualifications to justify my academic existence. This mean presenting my degree certificate in order to prove I was worthy of attaining a degree certificate.
I'm not proud...
Diary of a Mature Student: the run-up to the new academic year
I've come to the conclusion that life would have been a lot simpler, if, ten years ago, I'd woken up with the burning desire to be an accountant.
Note, from the last entry, that even while slightly drunk, I can still look up the GDP of small island nations. Think of this what you will.
But, seriously, as long as there's money, the world needs accountants. And they do fairly well out of it if they even have a modicum of financial ability; accountancy would have been the way forward, ten years ago.
If I'd chosen that path - if I'd even thought it remotely the right thing to do - things would be very different now, let me tell you. For one, I'd be able to afford better clothes. I'd hopefully have found some lovely, accountancy-tolerating lady and settled down somewhere suburban. Hell, by now I might even have children, and I could be teaching my youngest the heady joy of balancing figures and tax-deductible income.
Instead, something in me decided ten years ago to just freewheel - or, more accurately, free - and go with the flow. Hence, a humanities degree. Humanities degrees, in the fullness of things, are like filmmakers; they benefit no-one. The recipient spends a lifetime justifying just why their degree is useful in any field other than, say, teaching or perhaps, at a push, proofreading. Anyone who comes into contact with a humanities graduate gets this glossy look in their eyes as if to say you spent three years doing what, exactly?
But a humanities degree, I've worked out, is just a useful way of keeping dangerous minds off the streets and inculcating sound principles on their strange little minds. I don't mean dangerous minds in the sense that yeah, daddy-oh, they're going to go out there and change the world, I mean dangerous in the sense that lava is dangerous when it's molten but solid when it's cooled, if that makes any particular sense. All these eighteen-year-olds I see here at the moment are so, so sweet but sometimes I want to sit them down and gently tell them that the world outside the education system is a dark, and often annoying, place.
I didn't enjoy my first go on the degree merry-go-round, in case you hadn't inferred that from this blog so far. The first year was confused - and confusing - and rushed and full of sound and fury, signifying nothing, leaving a lot of people completely unprepared for the seriousness of the second year. The third year was the only time I started to actually appreciate just what the hell was actually going on, and, more importantly, appreciate exactly what the point of study is.
Kind of.
And then the real world, shiny and cuttingly bright, beckoned, and suddenly the student overdraft needs paying and there aren't any jobs that pay enough to live any kind of fully independent life, and it all goes, quite frankly, to... No, that's not quite true. I paid my student overdraft and cultivated an odd little kind of independence from the odd little job I found and ended up staying at for about half a decade.
Now... I'm back, baby, and the undergraduate education system seems strikingly different to the one I left. It's a lot like returning to a workplace you left years ago to find everything changed; natural, but unsettling.
Take the marking system, for instance. Old style was 'pass 75% of your modules per year and you'll get a degree, if not a great one'. New style seems to be 'pass everything but don't worry about the grades in your first year; shit, 41% will do, kid, just so long as you pass. And by the way, we don't actually trust you to do independent study, so there are weekly negative-equity tests to pass - you get sweet F.A. if you do them but we'll dock lots of percentage points from you if you don't...'
It seems like an odd little way of preparing the young people of today for the sudden second-year seriousness of grades that actually matter, but hey, maybe it actually works. I don't know. I've been trying to convince my contemporaries that doing well now is something to be proud of, but I'm not quite sure it's getting through.
I feel a lot like a Cassandra, except for the 'most beautiful' part. (Or, strictly speaking, the 'daughter part. But hey.) I'm not a shining example of the merits of academia - pretty far from it, actually - but I do want at least one person I count as a friend here to take a little notice of my lessons in How Not To Fuck Things Up, from Crow, who has a P.h.D in the subject.
Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe not.
One thing that entertains me; upon applying for this course, I was asked to provide evidence of my most recent qualifications to justify my academic existence. This mean presenting my degree certificate in order to prove I was worthy of attaining a degree certificate.
I'm not proud...
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