3rd Year, First Day

First proper day back at University. The first day of my Third Year and it's a biggie. This year is our last chance to shine, to work hard and earn that coveted First, or a 2:1 at the very least. Anything less and you've really screwed the pooch and wasted three years of your life.

Well, that's my attitude.

Others appear to be totally unconcerned. Three of my fellow students turned up to my first lecture without pen, pencil or paper. I could see two of them, and another to my side, and they just sat there apparently uninterested in what was going on around them. Perhaps it's just too uncool to appear keen to learn? Maybe they all possess fantastic powers of recall and never write anything down? Or, more likely, they just couldn't give a toss.

The thing is that we are the lucky ones. We don't pay £9k a year. We pay around £3.6k while you, the taxpayer, pay about £6k a year on our behalf. Yes, your lovely hard earned cash goes towards paying for my education and that of the deadbeats. Now I like to think that you're getting your money's worth out of me but there are some who are just pissing every penny of your cash down the nearest drain. I don’t think that's fair, do you?

Students Beware!

Well the new academic year beckons. I know that because my third year induction letter, yes a physical letter (are we living in some sort of time warp here?), landed on my door mat the other day with a particularly doom laden thud.

The letter sparked off a couple of thoughts.

The first thought was whether I'd be dumped on by the University Admin department again. My first two years were characterised by a timetable apparently created by a baboon suffering a case of cerebral termites. Or by someone who thought it was fun to make a mature student commute into Lincoln five days a week, three of those days for just a single session. That's about three hours of travelling for, at times, 29 minutes of education. And no, I didn't like it either as it wasted both my precious time and my limited travel budget.

My second thought was that as the new academic year begins there is only one certainty. That the students flowing into the University of Lincoln, and all the other universities that litter the UK like bloated leeches, are seen as little more than cash cows.

Students as cash cows? Yes. You are a source of income for the universities and the businesses that cluster around them like parasites. The bars, the shops, cafeterias, takeaways and nightclubs all see you as walking cash machines. All of them desperate to split you away from your cash. Depending on your gullibility to line their pockets at your expense.

As long as you've got an inexhaustible supply of cash, and I envy you if you have, then this state of affairs shouldn't cause you any sleepless nights. For the rest of you, I've got some advice that’s worth heeding.

1. If coffee is your thing then make your own up every morning and bring it into uni in a thermos flask. Enjoy your favourite coffee hit for pennies instead of pounds.

2. Avoid buying meals from cafeterias and takeaways. Reacquaint yourself with the good old lunch box. Bring in your own food. From my experience the food will not just be better tasting but also a fraction of the price.

3. Avoid the tech temptations. Yes, a new laptop looks the dog's cojones. Yes, it's nice to swan around with the latest smartphone or tablet computer but do you actually need it? Or if you do need that gadget can you get something cheaper? A top tip for tech temptations is to look at last year's offerings. They're usually just as good and a fraction of the price being charged for the latest gadget. You pay a premium for being a first adopter, or should that be gullible sucker?

4. Don't print anything unless you really have to. Paper and printing cost money so find alternatives. Why not PDF instead? There are plenty of free opensource applications that can be used to create PDFs straight from most applications. Store the information, don't print it! (Just remember to back up everything, as I expect you do all the time).

5. Don't let peer pressure influence you into doing anything, or buying anything, you don't need or want. Remember, it's not what you've got but what you can do with it that counts. This world is full of tackle tarts. People who are fixated on things instead of results. Follow their lead and you're guaranteed to waste your precious funds on pointless tat.

6. If possible, get a job. It might not pay you a fortune but it will bring in an income. It will also give you some experience of the world of work. A place that is totally alien to the academic world. You get something on your CV to prove that you can actually handle a job and you’ll learn the value of money. Money earned through your own efforts, sweat and tears. A lesson that is beyond price.

To survive student life with the smallest pile of debt possible you need to adopt a miserly attitude to money. Don't waste it. Don't say “keep the change” when buying a sausage roll from the local baker (and they do that up here in sleepy Epworth). No, hoard your cash instead. Guard against those who want to live off you. Sucking the very life out of you and the money out of your pockets.

GCSE Results - Not A Cause For Celebration

Last week saw the release of the GCSE results with many scenes of young people jubilantly celebrating. Just a shade over 69% of them got a grade A – C. A hearty well-done to you all, I don’t think.

Some might say: "Mike, why are you so down on all these immensely talented, intelligent young people? Aren’t you just being a crusty old curmudgeon? Lighten up and recognise the genius of Britain’s youth."

To which I reply: “The GCSE is pretty much a defunct and educationally bankrupt measure of academic achievement. It is my considered opinion that the courses involved, the way they are marked and course content is not fit for purpose. The young people of this nation have been betrayed by years of educational inflation that has left them holding, in my opinion, a worthless piece of paper.”

There will be plenty of people out there who don’t want to hear this. The young people who’ve just received their exam results and their parents. Politicians, who always seem eager to climb onto the back of news stories about ever climbing educational achievements. Teachers, who won’t want to hear criticism of their profession and the damage it inflicts on the tender young minds consigned to its care. The exam authorities, who ferociously defend any accusation that today’s examinations are not as tough as they once were. My opponents are legion but their vast numbers do not change the fact that the GCSE is pretty much worthless.

Of course, gentle reader, you’re entitled to know how I arrived at this conclusion. Here’s why I think GCSEs are a pile of mouldering whale turd that lies at the bottom of the ocean.

1. Anecdotal evidence that I’ve gleaned from my first two years at university. Listening to my peers recount what they learnt at school and my realisation that they’d learnt very little. Holders of highly marked GCSEs in ICT knowing nothing about computers, the Internet or even basic technology. The ICT course appears to be based on how to use various software packages without any solid grounding in even the most basic concepts.

2.Comments from educational professionals. My favourite being: “Over the last ten years I’ve seen a steady, year on year, decay in the quality of students attending university.” If those young people reaching university are meant to be the best what state are the cast offs in? That scares me.

3.My own research, directed towards my dissertation subject, has been most revealing. I downloaded a recent GCSE maths paper and thought it a joke. It begins with a page of formulas so the little kiddies don't have to remember them! Why the Hell not? We were required to do exactly that for our GCE "O" level exams. A question concerning basic arithmetic, not mathematics, even gave the hint that one litre equals one thousand millilitres. Can I assume that our educational system thinks that our children are unable to understand the metric system?

4.My experiences as the father of a teenage son. My wife and I attended my son's annual parents' evening and were left shocked by what we heard. My wife, being keen on foreign languages, questioned our son's French teacher over his apparent lack of progress, especially his ignorance of verb conjugations. We were informed that as the pupils at my son's school don't learn about verbs and grammar in English then it's impossible to teach them about it in French! Now I attended a pretty bog standard secondary modern school in North London. I clearly remember being drilled in verb conjugation. I also remember being drilled in grammar in English as well. Old Mrs Wells, my English teacher and adversary (she of the CND viewpoint), would be spinning in her grave if she'd heard this. If we were able to learn it why not the children of today? They have the same potential and access to resources we couldn't have dreamed of. Homework is another issue. My son rarely gets homework and when he does it's pathetic. Not exactly stretching or challenging. The whole ethos of the state educational systems appears to be summed up as following: "Do just enough to pass the exam."

For me it's obvious that these young people have been betrayed. They are, potentially, just as good as any other generation of students. Who knows? They might be much better. But they have not been stretched academically. They have not been forced to push themselves beyond their “safe” limits. Our educational system has failed to drive them far beyond their own meagre boundaries and has left them educationally stunted. They are capable of so much but have not been encouraged, pushed or even forced to learn. They have also been duped. Tricked into thinking that their academic achievements are of value when, I'm sorry to say, they are not.

I pity these young people and I pity this nation that looks to them to drive the economy forward into the 21st Century.