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.
