Our Director Writes:
Diary of a Mature Student: Two Thirds to Halfway
So I've not been writing so much recently. This is partly because, hey, life comes along and reminds you that there are more important things to do than spend your time writing, which is true, I suppose.
I thought, however, it was probably time to address a reality of the situation of being a Mature Student, i.e. the reality that you're giving up any hope of being treated normally by any social group you care to join.
Sounds harsh? Well, you're not working full time, so all your contemporaries who are look at you with a kind of morbid fascination in your eyes, and, occasionally, that little tinge of scorn or jealousy; why aren't you contributing to being a productive member of society? Why do you get to be a lazy, good-for-nothing student, a drain on the state and a problem for your parents, and I have to work a forty-hour week?
At the same time, these people are getting married, having children, and getting on the property ladder, things that aren't even remotely realistic if you want to further your education.
Meanwhile, your fellow students are asking the same questions, but from the opposite end of the spectrum; it's still why aren't they working? What's wrong with the normal world that they felt it was the decent, sane option to come here instead? What exactly am I supposed to look forward to?
This is the Spectre at the Feast theory, which has been mentioned in part before, but put in short; just by being there, a mature student sows the seeds of doubt that the real world is the promised land. Oh yes, young people, 80% of you will go on and get a good degree, and a good job, and live a good life. another 15% on top of that will get a great job and have a great life. But 5% of you will end up doing something weird, like being a nudist kayaking instructor, a tree, or a mature student. And when you do... Look kindly on the young people.
Family get a free pass to the kind of annoying in-jokes nobody should suffer after, say, their sixteenth birthday; a mixture of the friends response along with the well, why are they doing that? response. They don't always do this - I'm lucky, in that I have a very supportive family group - but the vague disdain that can crop up every now and then is a little disheartening.
Here's the simple reason; being a mature student means giving up all the conventional markers of success. I love my car, but it's ten years old, and I have to negotiate with the CD player every time I want something to play, because it's a finicky old bastard. The radio plays from both speakers, eager to please, but the CD player only plays from the right speaker, just to be contrary. The catches on the boot also like to play the odd trick, just to keep me on my toes. But it has great fuel economy and an interesting interior colour scheme, and I've grown to love it since I've had it. So that marker of success - the nice car, or, if you're single, the fast car - is gone.
Property ladder? Just... No. The only way I can afford to attend university is through the generosity and kindness of my family, including being able to live at home. Which makes another marker of success, the romantic relationship, that much more difficult, but hey, half the time you're so busy studying that the whole relationship thing is just not going to happen, whether you like it or not. This culminated last year with a relationship going from friends to let's just be friends within two days, which was a new record, and extremely confusing.
So you're probably asking yourself; why do it?
And the simple answer is; because I can't not do it.
In theory, I have been in one or another form of education for the majority of my life. After leaving school, I went to the merry-go-round of university for the first time. When I left, and found work, I took language classes at night school for two years. After that, my work started funding Open University courses, which meant that even when I was working full time, I was also studying for another qualification.
I... And this is difficult to admit... I love studying. Even more so on this course, because it teaches me something practical; I (heart)ed my previous course, don't get me wrong, but through every previous course I've largely been taught how to be a better academic, with the end result being that I'm now a better student than I ever was - or possibly could have been - when I was eighteen.
I care about results, I care about learning, and I care about my fellow students in a way I didn't before. Which is interesting, if you're into the whole argument over whether people can change or not. I - like a lot of people, I guess - kind of wish I could go back and meet myself ten years ago. Not to give them advice, although that might have been fun, or to tell them things - because god only knows they (i.e. I) wouldn't have listened - but just to listen to them, and maybe understand a bit more where I've come from.
Oh, I definitely still spend too much time pissing about on the internet and playing games with friends on Steam, and I could spend my time So! Much! More! Productively!; but I'm happy, because, for once, in my own little way, I'm starting to have a postive effect on my world and, in some cases, the world around me.
So, in a funny way, giving up all the normal societal markers of success was worth it. But... ssh. Don't tell anyone.
