This autumn marks my tipping point: I’ll have lived up here as long as I lived in Suffolk, thanks to the august institution that is Leicester University. In 1995 tuition fees were but a gleam in the devil’s eye, and one could still go to Uni as a way of delaying getting a job for three years.
I am perturbed that finances are encouraging more kids to study from home. This Completely Misses The Point: you won’t get the chance to reinvent yourself, subsist on instant noodles and watch Quincy every afternoon for three years in your childhood bedroom. A degree’s not just about the difference in your pay cheque, whatever the bloody Daily Mail says. "One of the purposes... is to make the inside of your head a more interesting place to live for the rest of your life." (Scott Brophy, Professor of Philosophy, Hobart.)
Catered or self-catering? Catered halls tend to offer the best social life, but it depends whether you think eating school dinners for a year is worth it. Regardless of where you choose, it will rapidly become a rank cesspit of filth. The French exchange students erected a banner in our kitchen that said “Welcome to the porks house!” in protest against an overflowing bin that none of us were inclined to deal with. (Warning: attempts to impose any sort of cleaning rota will mark you out as a killjoy and ruin your social standing. You’re young, your immune system can handle it. And for the rest of your life, you will appreciate getting into a shower that doesn't have other people's plasters clogging up the drains.)
An earnest theology student recently told me she studied for 60 hours a week. Ludicrous. 20 hours should more than cover it, especially for arts subjects. My highest mark in my finals was for a book I hadn't even read, just regurgitated my lecture notes in the exam.
Finally: There is no other time in your life where you will consider 1:30am an early night... or 9.30am an early start. Enjoy it!
Very true suzy very true
ReplyDeleteI love it! Sheena x
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Looking forward to seeing you both Saturday, sorry didn't reply to your offer of cooking for the gig Saturday! Got completely tied up and email went off view. Have only just realised I did nothing about replying. We are cooking chilli in the village hall tomorrow afternoon (Friday) you are most welcome to join us for a social, but cooking is relatively straight forward, David does a pan and I do a pan (we have been here before!) Help putting bread and butter cutlery etc out on Saturday would be great, see you whenever it is, Us x
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Well, back in 1986, the State even paid us to go to Uni! Did you do French? What a fab subject to do when you're young (well, younger). All that ruminating about the big subjects and yourself, the biggest subject of all.
ReplyDeleteIf you're studying 60 hours a week, you're doing it wrong. I can't remember how much time I spent on my degree, but remember spending a good deal of time on the things I discovered that interested me, and just cribbing the rest. As you did with Celine ;)
Hope they liked the chilli :)
I started off doing French and Italian then switched to French and Sociology.
ReplyDeleteI think I'd get so much more out of the actual studying bit now than when I was 18 and had already been learning for 13 years. But "the university experience" was invaluable. The more sheltered your background the more you need to go, if only to learn there are people who eat their tea later than 6:30pm, sometimes even without HP sauce.
The chilli, and the event that it accompanied, were both superb.