An Eye Opener

During a conversation today I heard this comment "University is like a three year long 18-30 holiday. Drinking, sex and if you're lucky a bit of studying".

Initially, this shocked me but after a short period of reflection I was forced to agree. For many of my peer group it would appear that the social aspect of university life is of the highest importance. Studying is little more than an inconvenience.

This reminds me of the long lost past. When I was at secondary school and dinosaurs still roamed the length of the A10 Great Cambridge Road. We, the boys of my class at Kingsmead Secondary Modern, all lusted after one or more girls of our year. It was pretty much a struggle to remember what our own names were when we watched the girls run out in their cute pleated mini-skirted PE kits. Only frequent cold showers prevented many incidents of Spontaneous Human Combustion! School trips were opportunities to get “closer” to our female peers, usually with a uniform lack of success I might add! Much valuable learning time was lost to lust even in those dark days before the invention of sex and skin tight leggings!

So back to today and university where the hormones are raging, the booze flowing like Niagara Falls and drunken couplings so frequent that you could break you neck by slipping on the used condoms. Being a married chap, I feel quite able to stand above all this. But I must remember that my peer group haven't had the luxury of my own life experiences. They are, in most cases, 20 years younger than myself. Getting drunk, high and screwed is far more interesting than the complexities of media law or the Byzantine complexities of the EU parliament. Perhaps I need to step back just a bit and let them have their fun. Ignore the interminable tales of sexual conquests, super hot vindaloo consumption and group vomiting. They're young and should enjoy themselves.

Why should I be so uncharacteristically charitable? Because while the rest of the student body are wasting their time on immediate gratification of their basest desires I can get on, earn the best marks I can and (hopefully) steal a march on getting a well paid position upon (or before) graduation! I suspect that many of my peer group may still be drunk, high and diseased come graduation day, 2012.

2nd Year Cometh

The over long summer break is nearly over and the new academic year beckons. In a few weeks time I will re-enrol for my second year as an undergraduate studying Advertising and Journalism. I look forward to it with great enthusiasm. There's so much more to learn. I also hope that those students from my first year who had little or no enthusiasm for the course will have left for pastures new.

But before that I will be attending university on the 21st of September. Why? Because I volunteered to be a Study Buddy. To assist the newcomers to university life. I just hope that the new students aren't only after advice concerning nightclubs, socialising and how to cook a pot noodle.

As is my habit, I have been thinking about what I need to say to the young people who'll be placed into my care. To that end I spent sometime considering the entries I made in my personal journal during my own first few weeks at university. The basic advice boils down to the following....

1. Attend every lecture. Keep your mouth shut and your eyes and ears open.

2. Attend every seminar. Do the pre-seminar work and be ready to answer questions and take part in any discussion.

3. Get organised. You have to take responsibility for your own learning and the management of your time.

4. Read the unit handbooks thoroughly. Make sure you know what you need to do in the way of assignments and tests AND when they're due.

All very simple and straightforward but then so is common sense, which in my opinion is very rare commodity.

Some of the incidents of my first year came back to me during this exercise. There was the young woman who declared that "I hate writing", quite amusing considering that she was on the Journalism course. Another young lady asked me what we'd been doing in the Introduction to Advertising unit. Why? Because she'd neglected to attend a single lecture or seminar, for that unit, for about two months. The wonderful people who felt it quite acceptable to sit at the back of lectures and hold conversations on their mobile phones or with their friends. Sometimes the noise was almost enough to drown out the voice of the lecturer! I also remember the 09:00 lecture the morning after the Carnage event. In a lecture theatre capable of holding a couple of hundred people we had about 15 people including the lecturer.

I hope that this years intake of young blood truly values the investment they are making in their futures. That they have a real thirst to learn and the drive to make something of themselves.