Wednesday 15 March 2017

The best years of our lives...


Someone has just been on the radio saying that the days as a university student were the most fun in their lives.

There has been a massive swing - as there is with every imbalance - from the days of the Oxbridge upper-class elite to the notion that every young person has the right to an Arts degree at univeristy. The consequences of this is that technical courses have almost dwindled out of existence and if you do gain a degree in an industrial course, there will probably be no job in manufacturing to use it.

Same with Economics. The amount of stand-up comdeians with an Economics degree probably corresponds to the job vacancies for which they are qualified.

This explains why so many Bath University students scream their way around the streets until four in the morning every night of the week. The local bus company has made allowance for them by providing the last bus back to campus at 3.30 am. This is their idea of burning the midnight oil - burning the candle at both ends, every night of the week.

I suppose I never see the swats who actually want to gain a degree, so my impression is that they don't exist. There must be one or two.

I also suppose that it could be possible for one or two people to be so talented that they can party all night and still get firsts, but when G.E. got her first in Nursing she beat many others who thought they were so gifted that they didn't have to work toward the exams. They were almost offended that a fellow student with dyslexia sailed past them by sheer effort.

In my day, if you didn't like the idea of strenous academic work as a student, you went to Art College and never expected to get a job in your chosen field ever again. Art schools were generally viewed as secular monasteries, protecting lazy youngsters from the outside world. In the 1940s and 50s, they were set up as finishing-schools for young ladies.

The most common pledge made by art students bidding each other farewell at the end of a three year course was, "I AM going to continue to paint/sculpt. I will NEVER stop painting/sculpting/drawing!" Mostly lies, of course.

26 comments:

  1. Well, you didn't lie.
    Greetings Maria x

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    1. Well I didn't promise anything either. My plan was to have a good time after I left art school. I almost succeeded.

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  2. I enjoyed my years in Art School especially the sleeping on the donkeys during the Life Class :-)

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  3. My oldest left his Oxford college with a Desmond (Tutu 2/2). When I asked him why he didn't achieve a first, he replied that he would have to have done some work.

    I think your penultimate para is spot-on!

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    1. ... then it was used by my flatmates to wipe their arses on. I remember how pissed-off (and quite rightly) Simon was when they failed him, after all that work and all those good paintings. He was fuckiing gutted and I don't blame him.

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    2. I seem to remember he went around saying that he didn't care; but of course he did.

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    3. Yes, he felt betrayed I think.

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  4. Good grief! Don't burst the bubble that we all knew that University education was just to keep the unemployment figures down. Another first for Blair.

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    1. And the banks had a whole new generation in debt using government funding.

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  5. Sent middle daughter to an expensive private university and in her last semester she had to choose a class. One was chemistry and the other, Celtic Fire Rituals. I think you know which one she chose.

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    1. I met an American girl in Cambridge who attended an 'Arthurian Studies' (the king) course and I said I did not know one was on offer. It wasn't. she made one up. She was rich.

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  6. Life's the same the world around. My grandson lived with me for three semesters of school. I realized his grades were substandard and "forced" him to raise them a full grade point the second semester. His average went to the summa cum laude range. The final semester he watched You Tube and took exams. He graduated laude only, satisfied he'd shown me. Now he's making wraps and attending a junior college. Doing well, though. Eventually he'll know everything, too.

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  7. This reminds me of talent shows like American Idol or the X factor. So many contestants have said: "This is not the last you've heard of me. I will keep going."

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  8. It doesn't seem as simple as this to me.

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  9. Does her dyslexia affect her nursing in any way?

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    1. Only when it comes to administering lethal doses to children by getting the decimal point in the wrong position.

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    2. OK, not a good one I admit...

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  10. Mmmh - my job is to advise students - and I feel I have to take up the cudgels for many many students I know who are really hard working - more than we ever did!

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    1. I think that German students generally work much harder than British ones.

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