Yeah, my enthusiasm for studying is waning, I'm 30 this year and have been in and out of education so long its getting dullll. But I try to see it as work. I always liked school, it didn't take much to get me to school [well, for the education, I used to skip school sometimes when I didn't want to go out]. But now I don't love it, but, like work, I figure just sit down and do it. Its so tempting though, to just dally all day.
The University experienceneriedesFebruary 2 2008, 17:15:08 UTC
something between Dead Poets Society and Northern Lights
Yes, I spent a great deal of time in my head romanticising about university life. Yearning to belong to a strong student movement of young idealists and activists disgruntled with the World, fighting to change it, to shake it up, to recreate it. Instead I found apathetic, apolitical and uncurious creatures than seemed to view learning as an inconvenience. It looks like my fantasy belongs in the seventies.
I still have a spark of hope though, which is why I am applying for an exchange to Berkeley Digital Film Institute, ‘cause that’s famous for its student movements right…
Re: The University experienceeduard_greenFebruary 6 2008, 02:21:35 UTC
Hey wow, that sounds great! I would love to study in america and am hoping I could do something over there after the degree [maybe an MA]. I went to University thinking I'd join the next monty python - meet a bunch of bouncy over creative actors / writers / directors - people who wanted to do everything, and were happy with a stick and a bit of old film and just keep throwing ideas around until something worked. Not much there in Stirling. I have my eye on the BBC now...
University was definitely more of a validating experience for me than the amazing learning experience I'd imagined. Like you, I think I expected more joy and adventure from learning what I wanted to learn. The reality was prescribed classes, late nights and inconvenience. Block headed lecturers and class politics.
I got a degree. I got that piece of paper that says I have one. Which is something real and tangible and can't be erased or dismissed. But it's still worth more to other people than me. I don't know if I can expect more than that. Maybe that's how the game is played.
Maybe I shouldn't be reading the finale of Doom Patrol before posting comments. Sorry. :-)
No, I know what you mean. The real experinece of university is a muddle of stiving for what our imaginations want and trying to just get the bloody work done. When i do get enthused about a chapter or section of the course a little bit of me feels depressed that I'll probably never use this knowledge. Oh dear, now I'm being pessimistic. But you know what I mean. i wish my education was more applicable to the real world.
Do you remember Alina, from school? I think she had that experience at Oxford. Said they used to sit in the quad at midnight reading poetry and drinking red wine. My uni was a bit dull. But I couldn't have handled Oxbridge at 18.
Can we volunteer to be a case study for child development? :-)
*confused* - i thought you did go to oxford? Did you take a year out? I heard little bits back from angie wright about oxford and it seemed -just- what i wanted - the enormous lecture theatres and oak floored rooms with iron beds and climbing into each others rooms at night through the windows. Don't think I could ever handle oxford though. [I watched a documentary about a boy at eton with cystic fibrosis the other night and loved the way they have to wear morning coast and shirts with little stiff collars all year round - I would add that to my wish list of the perfect universoty experience]
And of course you can be a case study : ) You mean you are not keeping extensive daily notes like Darwin!? *is aghast*
Mmmm, I did go to Oxford, but only as a postgrad, at 22 (very old!) having had some of my corners rubbed off at Leicester first. At Oxford I was at a graduate college so quite different from the traditional ones, more modern buildings (well, Victorian!) and more egalitarian, no formal halls or high table. The students were from much more varied backgrounds and definitely there to knuckle down and get on with work. I had a friend (American), who had been at Oxford before, and she was in DougSoc (the Douglas Adams society). I went along to a couple of their things and they were all very very witty and clever and wacky all the time and not very friendly to an awkward hanger-on from the sticks. But then DA did famously call them a bunch of wankers... At the older colleges you have to say grace in Latin and the like and that used to irritate me. I went back for my graduation ceremony last year and discovered that I'm now old enough to revel in all of the bizarre traditions. Watching the Deans, Proctors etc going through the motions was all
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Yes, I spent a great deal of time in my head romanticising about university life. Yearning to belong to a strong student movement of young idealists and activists disgruntled with the World, fighting to change it, to shake it up, to recreate it. Instead I found apathetic, apolitical and uncurious creatures than seemed to view learning as an inconvenience. It looks like my fantasy belongs in the seventies.
I still have a spark of hope though, which is why I am applying for an exchange to Berkeley Digital Film Institute, ‘cause that’s famous for its student movements right…
Reply
I went to University thinking I'd join the next monty python - meet a bunch of bouncy over creative actors / writers / directors - people who wanted to do everything, and were happy with a stick and a bit of old film and just keep throwing ideas around until something worked. Not much there in Stirling. I have my eye on the BBC now...
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I got a degree. I got that piece of paper that says I have one. Which is something real and tangible and can't be erased or dismissed. But it's still worth more to other people than me. I don't know if I can expect more than that. Maybe that's how the game is played.
Maybe I shouldn't be reading the finale of Doom Patrol before posting comments. Sorry. :-)
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[so far I can tell you that children can do everything and gradually lose more and more abilities until they reach 18- it is very depressing]
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Can we volunteer to be a case study for child development? :-)
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[I watched a documentary about a boy at eton with cystic fibrosis the other night and loved the way they have to wear morning coast and shirts with little stiff collars all year round - I would add that to my wish list of the perfect universoty experience]
And of course you can be a case study : ) You mean you are not keeping extensive daily notes like Darwin!? *is aghast*
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