The Loneliness of the long distance Mature Student

My first seminar this morning was a fantastic example of what life can be like at university for a mature student.

I arrived early, as usual, and settled myself down for the traditional long wait for anyone else to turn up. (Do not fear for me Gentle Reader, I didn’t waste the time as I feel constitutionally unwilling to piss my life away) An 09:00 start being a bit too much for most of the regular students. Poor little dears. I wonder what they’ll think of actually working a full day if/when they graduate and manage to get a job?

 

So by about ten minutes to the hour one other student had arrived. The rest of those who could be bothered trickled in over the course of about fifteen minutes. The fact that some were tardy is not exactly rare and hardly worthy of comment. But what is worth comment is what they did once they came into the room and espied the evil countenance of the being known as Mike the Terror of Student Kind.

 

Yes, I was sat down on one side of the room and was easily visible to the approaching students. One look at my frightening visage was enough to drive them away. Hiding their faces from my glowing red eyes, freshly polished horns and steaming anus. As each of the quivering creatures entered my realm they scuttled like fleeing crabs and took a seat as far from me as they could.

 

I found this most amusing and not at all surprising. Wasn’t it Alison Cheeseman, she of the exquisite Scottish accent and piercing wit, who christened me “The Lone Ranger” in my first year? (That was because I have this habit of sitting at the front in lectures and answering questions. I like doing that but it has earned me the response “Shut up you, I know you know the answer” a fair few times).

 

I am left wondering what would happen if I turned up late and tried to sit amongst the student throng? Perhaps they’d all get up and pointedly move to other seats? Maybe they’d pelt me with rotting fruit and the gizzards of freshly slaughtered first years? Or, just maybe, they’d throw themselves to the floor like craven dogs. Fearful of the Wrath of Mike the Mighty Mature Student.

 

Probably not.

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.

What Will 2012 Hold For Us?

I stand upon the threshold of my third year at the centre of the academic universe (okay, the University of Lincoln) and contemplate the state of the world outside the brick and concrete walls of academia.

Why bother? I hear some of you ask. Well it’s quite simple really. The state of the economy of this fair nation (the UK) is going to have a direct bearing on our (and I really mean my) ability to find work after we finish our courses. From where I’m sitting the future doesn’t look at all rosy.

Why?

1. The UK government is mired in debt. Successive governments have maxed out the state credit card and we suddenly find ourselves with the national equivalent of a nasty looking pair of guys at the front door looking to take away anything remotely valuable. It’s like a scene out of The Full Monty, except I don’t think the whole nation standing up in its collective underwear is going to scare them away.
2. We, as a nation, have very limited means of making money. We don’t really make much, our services sector is heavily dependent on banking (which is not exactly doing that well), we have few natural resources to exploit and we’re pretty limited when it comes to tourism.
3. Our educational system is a nightmare. The value of many of the academic awards appears to be bogus. My own experiences of dealing with university students doesn’t engender in me any respect for “A” Levels or GCSEs. My son’s current education, at a state secondary school (sorry, academy with a focus on the performing arts), fills me with dread. Especially when I look at the syllabuses for various GCSE courses.
4. Our costs, both as a nation and as individuals, are rising like rockets. Electricity, gas, petrol and diesel have all reached a price point where they have become real weights around our collective necks. I now dread the arrival of power bills and I’m sure that I’m not alone. If the cost of energy is so high here then that puts our nation’s ability to compete in the global markets in peril. It also puts off potential investors in the UK. Remember, business isn’t about sentimentality it’s about making money. 
5. The UK has become addicted to state interventions. Both in monetary terms and in social terms as well. If anything goes wrong then people seem to be obsessed with “what’s the government going to do about it?” Self-reliance seems to be as rare as rocking horse poo. That’s led us to a welfare state we cannot afford, hence the huge government borrowing, and a people who expect to be spoon fed from the cradle to the grave.

So what can we do? Unfortunately, not a lot. My considered opinion is that the UK is in the toilet and will remain there for some time. My advice is to start looking elsewhere. Beyond the rather stinky and turd laden shores of good old Blight. Look for those countries where they’re making money. China, Canada and Australia seem to be doing well at the moment. Africa could be the rising star of the 21^st Century. Perhaps Eastern Europe? You need to look into the options available to you and start thinking of not just what you want to do when you leave university but where you want to do it. I’m certain of only one thing at this time. The UK is going to be in intensive care for a long time to come. Can you afford to wait around?

I'm Back - First Year Students Beware...

After a prolonged period away I can announce that I'm back and full of vitriol. So what to begin with? How about Mike's Advice for first year university students?

Here it is....

1. Turn up to lectures and keep mouth shut and eyes and ears open. If your mates want to play around and make a nuisance of themselves then dump them.

2. Turn up to seminars and do the set tasks. Why bother even being at uni if you cannot be bothered to do the work? If you're only going for the lifestyle and the socialising then you're wasting your time.

(I'm about to start my 3rd year at Lincoln and can tell you that many students weren't exactly bothering to do either 1 or 2 for the first two years.)

3. Don't fall for the bull crap that your first year's marks don't count to your degree. They don't and they do. Why the paradox? Simples. The tutors are looking out for those who work hard and show a real interest in the subject. Spend the first year of your course tossing it off and guess what kind of impression it makes on the people who count (tutors/lecturers etc)? Come on, it doesn't take a genius to understand that.

4. Marks? Aim for a First in everything. Aim to be top dog at every subject. Why? Well in the words of one of my tutors:  "Anyone with less than a 2:1 has wasted the last three years." Guess what? He was right. You're going into a fantastically competitive world and you cannot have too high a mark in any subject. If that means abandoning friends, being focused and selfish with your own resources etc then you've just realised what the REAL world is like. Once you graduate everyone around you will be competing for the same kind of work. They're not your friends and peers, they are your competitors and they won't shed a tear for you when you end up serving Big Macs at the local Maccy D's.

5. Watch out for group work. While your Uni will tell you that there are mechanisms to deal with the freeloaders that group work nearly ALWAYS attracts those mechanisms aren't very effective. There are plenty of students who will let you do all the work while they reap the benefits of a good mark earned by you.

6. Watch out for the Mature Students (I'm one so be warned!). Why? Well it's quite simple. We are often more motivated, better focused and not obsessed with getting into everyone else's underwear. Yes, we are boring. Yes, we are older and probably appear to be ancient when compared to you. Yes, we care about our marks and how well we can translate them into career enhancing opportunities. But we also make damn good team managers for group work, usually have a better understanding of the tutors/lecturers and can draw on life experiences that you can only dream off. You can learn from the mature students. Watch them. Even get acquainted if you like. But also remember that a mature student, if they're remotely like me, will be looking to beat you. To get higher marks and to succeed in the job market. That means they won't tell you everything. They won't spoon feed you answers and make your life easier.

7. I wrote some material for our student newspaper (The Linc - check it out) and in one piece I compared the majority of my fellow students to pig swill. I still stand by that statement. I also compared a very few students to pearls. My advice to you is to be a pearl. A hard working, dedicated, focused individual. If that's not your attitude then I'd recommend you withdraw from university asap and save yourself a whole pile of cash and a wasted three years of your life.

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.

The Mature Student's Survival Guide - Progress So Far

Well I've been very lucky in getting a number of responses to my appeal for help in compiling what I'm calling "The Mature Student's Survival Guide". But I need to spread my net wider. I need to get comments and experiences from mature students who haven't attended the University of Lincoln. The danger is that my own experiences, and those of other Lincoln students, may not be repeated at other UK universities.

As part of my trawl for information I have been fortunate to meet some of the members of the MAPS group at the University of Lincoln. It's a group of mature and post-graduate students who meet at the Atrium on a Wednesday lunchtime. They were a delight to meet. Interesting people studying interesting subjects. One guy is working on robotics, another working on an MA (I hope that's right) thesis concerning an early 20th Century right-wing politician and another who's working on visual scanning systems for sorting potatoes. An eclectic mix to say the least. But they all seemed far more interesting to talk too than many of my own peer group.

First Year Results Day

For the last few weeks I've been getting rather jittery about my university exam results and the results from some of my outstanding assignments. The exams were the first time in more than two decades that I had to take part in conventional handwritten examinations. Sitting in a large room, scribbling my heart out using pen and paper. It reminded me of my 'O' Level examinations that I took all those years ago back at Kingsmead Secondary Modern. Sweaty teenagers scribbling out answers in a large room full of silence and raging hormones.

I was more than nervous concerning the results. The uncertainty made the wait doubly nerve-racking. Most of the professional examinations I've taken have been computerised and the score provided in a matter of seconds. Here I was waiting for weeks. I'm surprised I had any nails left to bite.

So last night I cuddled up to my laptop and prayed to the God of Cottage Cheese (with pineapple chunks, of course) and waited for the 1st Year results to be posted. About midnight the information appeared on Blackboard and with some trepidation I clicked on the PDF link for my score.....

I was more than relieved to see that I had passed my 1st Year and was being allowed to proceed to the 2nd Year of the course. If I had failed it would have been a disaster. Especially as I make no secret of the fact that I think many of my fellow students couldn't care less about their studies. I pride myself on putting in as much effort as I can and aiming for the highest marks available. It doesn't make sense to me to put myself through university in the hope of a 2:2. I'm aiming for a First for every assignment and exam. Any time I don't get a First I feel that I've got to work harder and drive myself to improve. Hell, isn't that meant to be one of the core reasons to be at university in the first place?

So now I can prepare myself for the next year, polish my pens and dust off the dictionaries. Now I know what's expected from me I feel that I can "up" my game and go on to better things. Roll on September! I'm ready.