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Not only do I think people would get more out of university it they went later
More what though, that's the question, isn't it? Ganesh aside, there seems to be an assumption running through this thread that the sometimes huge secondary role of university - the way in which it gives many people new freedoms and opportunities in terms of social life, personal development, etc - is at best a distraction, at worst a waste of time.
Now, I share some of the regrets people have about not having spent quite as much time in the library as I should, and I'd never want to stand up for anti-intellectualism or students who complain about having to write essays. But actually, I also regret not taking the opportunity to do a bit more of lots of other things at university. And if I really regret anything about my own behaviour, it's that I was so badly socialised prior to arriving that it took me pretty much all of my three years there to develop working social skills and a half-decent sense of how to interact confidently with people I din't know, or even did know. And I also regret that I didn't appreciate the whole thing more at the time - the freedom, the time, the sense of space, the locale, the people within easy access - I regret that I didn't really twig that this was not going to last forever, although if I'm honest I do remember being terrified of what would happen after I left.
I have to say I'm picking up the rather odd sense of the GIFT OF SHAME as a good thing in some of the posts above - and not shame as in "have you no shame?" (about treating people in a bad way, say), but shame as in a sense of regret for the way people chose to live their live when they were young and having fun. Oh, the shame. Well, fair enough if you want to look at things like that, but having grown up in an Evangelical Christian church I tend to be wary of beating myself up for things I did in the past that were fun at the time and didn't actually do anybody any harm...
Confusingly, there also seem to be the idea of hard work as a virtue in itself running through this thread. Not a bad thing, and not totally disconnected from the value of academic study, but not quite the same thing either - at least not in my experience as an English student. My fondest memories of the time I spent actually 'studying' are of the times when I was able to relax a little and open myself up to the work I was reading, rather than seeing it as a task, as Work. I wish I'd done that more - reading Wordsworth on a sun-dappled lawn, that kind of malarkey. Which brings us to...
I’m now acclimatised to the idea that I just have to get up at 9 o’clock and spend about 8 hours at work, and that doesn’t even bother me much.
Is this, then, an attitude/behaviour that people should learn during their time at university? Is the current problem with the UK's university's that they don't leave people sufficiently institutionalised? I'd argue that it is a problem insofaras university for many people is experienced as a misleading hiatus from getting up and half-past seven, and getting a 9-to-5 job after that can be a bit of a nasty shock. But I'm a little wary of the view that "This is the real world, everyone has to do it so get used to it", because no matter how many times I might find myself thinking or saying that, I'm still aware that it's a little... limiting. |
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