I'm Glad.

Having recently graduated, and currently suffering PST (Post Student Trauma, of which classic symptoms are; not knowing what you're doing with your life, an overwhelming sense that you've achieved nothing by going to university and dull and everlasting dose of disorientation), I found myself, very surprisingly, beginning to have feelings of disdain towards the local student population. This is due to a number of reasons. But first, just to clarify, I decided to continue living in the city in which I studied because quite simply, I love it here, and it has become my home over the last three years.

So you can imagine my disappointment and disgust when, after arriving close to home after a particularly late shift at my weekend job, I find the main street absolutely covered in litter. And I mean, COVERED. Bins overflowing, litter-ally (see what I did there) EVERYWHERE. Mainly from the local takeaways, but a whole assortment of litter that looked that a bomb at the refuse collection centre had gone off. I am incredibly frustrated at myself for not taking a picture to get across the level of mess I'm talking about here. A few takeaway wrappers it was not.

After some time, disbelief gave way to curiosity. Was I this disrespectful/ adolescent as a student? Definitely not. What is it that makes people act with total disregard? I feel that its a result of a similar attitude to when Brits are abroad; 'not my home, someone else will clean it up.' And sure as can be, as I walked to the shop in the same area eight hours later, the streets were (almost) clean.

I'm not sure whether this would've bothered me two or three years ago, but it bothers me now because I hate to see people treat anywhere with such contempt, never mind where I live. But it unnerves me to think that these people; or mainly students as this is what makes up the majority of the local population; are tomorrows doctors, engineers, teachers, etc. These are the same people who will be running the country. God help us all.

But the main point of this blog is my realisation that the stigma attached to being a student is, in many cases, justified. I used to hate being tagged with all the classic student labels; lazy, bone idle, free-riding, complacent, apathetic... the list is endless. But many of them are true, and that should be a bitter pill to swallow for students, but it won't be. I'm glad I am no longer a student, and I thought I'd never say that.

University?

No Sign of Intelligent Life Anywhere. 

I spend a day in the library producing my written work, and I really do lose faith in people at my university. I know that my campus library isn’t exactly a fair representation of people at my establishment, and thank God. Because what I witness on my library days is something quite depressing.

I like to do my written work in the library because i find it less distracting than doing work at home, or so I think. Today, my table was over-run with people who had absolutely nothing better to do than sit there and talk about Oceana (the local chain-run night club) and their previous nights antics. Now this isn’t a case of snobbery. It’s true, I don’t like Oceana; in fact I’d rather shoot myself in the eyes with a BB gun repeatedly than go there. But my problem lies with their chosen venue today. A library. A place of study. Seriously, what’s wrong with the pub? Or a motorway? Or a mine-field? Anywhere but a place where you’re mindlessly distracting people with your dribble who are actually doing real work (I did 1600 words today, get me). Go to famous libraries around the world, such as the one in New York, or Harvard, and you feel like you’re walking too loudly. Not this one.

I only have myself to blame. There was the quiet study area upstairs I could’ve used, so I accept that it is my own choice and that is my fault. The thing is, I cant help wonder about the wider context of my little experience today. Here we have people who clearly have nothing better to do than sit in a library and talk crap all day. So their course can’t be that challenging or demanding. This wasn’t just today, by the way, this happens every time I’m in the library. Their course of study was ‘ something (maybe entertainment?) management’ and their current module was ‘Consumer Behaviour‘ (observant I am). I think the irony of their book covers- also entitled ‘Consumer Behaviour’ and contained picture of a sheep- was lost on them. 

My universtity receives a lot of criticism because of it’s so called ‘mickey mouse courses’ such as 'sports science,' or 'sports management,' whatever that is. Managing sports. Talk about devaluing higher education. And who can blame it’s critics? Such courses aren’t serious areas of studies. 

This is the problem with higher education in this country. People say there are too many people going to university, and that having a degree isn’t as useful as it once was. And they’re bloody right. We have people going to university merely to put off ‘real life’; as though university isn't real life; which means we have a generation trying to achieve a degree for all the wrong reasons. 

I can’t help feel that the hike in tuition fees will squeeze out these pointless courses and half- arsed tits who want to study ‘consumer behaviour.’ I think the current government might be doing it for the wrong reasons- I personally think that if you have the ability, then education should be free. But when you have universities accepting people who achieve D grades  and lower at A- level, then it stops being about ability and starts being about universities filling their courses for money, and so begins the vicious circle. 

University education should be about subjects with real substance; science, maths, the arts, technologies, english/ literature. Subjects which produce real talent that go on to do great things. But I’m sorry, people studying ‘Consumer Behaviour’, as though they’re studying a different species when in fact they’re studying THEMSELVES, well I draw the line there. 

Writers Block.

Having the time to collect my thoughts and share them with the world is a rarity these days, and even when this happens I feel unable to articulate properly what it is I want to say. I know I want to say something, I just don't know how to get these thoughts from my brain and into the computer. If someone could invent a device to stream thoughts between man and machine that would be great, thanks. 


In the mean time, I'll share a link to a video I watched some time ago. Zeiteist is the second, or third I'm not quite sure, instalment of a series of films asking the bigger questions. Watch it if your ready to see the world another way, and take from it what you will. People may scoff at this film, calling it conspiracy codswallop, but the most important thing for our industrialised civilisation to work the way it does relies on one thing; oil. And when this runs out, we are going to be very, very screwed.


"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead.