Grown Ups
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Being a grown-up is a scary reality of adult life that should be avoided at all costs. A grown-up is a responsible adult who handles things like the mortgage and other bills, someone who has a job, and someone, as I was told today, who has "no life". It would appear that this generation's 'responsible' and 'mature' students consider anyone who isn't a part of the student elite and who works instead to have missed out on the best opportunities open to them in life, and that their chosen path can only lead to doom and gloom as they have severely limited their options by making choices before they turn 30. What you really ought to do, the government, our teachers and our parents tell us, is go to university.
The common trend with the youth of today is, if you can, to go to university to study a BA in whatever you fancy. Most people don't really know exactly what they want to do aged 18 for the rest of their lives, so a stint in university, "growing up" away from home, is the best place to get your thoughts together and to prepare yourself for the real world. The problem with this is that if you don't know what you want to do with your life, how can you know which degree you want to take? For many students, those three or four blissful years can be used solely for "the experience" of being a student - whatever that is (most people would argue that it's meeting a load of people, getting drunk on a regular basis and attending the odd lecture in between). If you've got an aim behind your degree, then maybe academic achievement is on the agenda, but if you're not working in any particular direction, keeping your options open and avoiding those pesky limitations, then that's fine too - everyone knows that just having a degree is guaranteed to get you where you eventually decide you want to be, since they work as fast tickets into the workplace nowadays.
The best thing about being a student is that you don't have to be a grown up. You're in a wonderful limbo between dependence and independence, not needing to be completely responsible for your actions since your parents are always there to pick up the bill for any monetary problems, and free to do whatever you want because you're away from home, in "the best years of your life" and with access to more pubs and clubs than you could possibly think of. Being a grown-up? That's not for many years to come - students need to live their lives to the fullest before they can even start to think about all that.
The common trend with the youth of today is, if you can, to go to university to study a BA in whatever you fancy. Most people don't really know exactly what they want to do aged 18 for the rest of their lives, so a stint in university, "growing up" away from home, is the best place to get your thoughts together and to prepare yourself for the real world. The problem with this is that if you don't know what you want to do with your life, how can you know which degree you want to take? For many students, those three or four blissful years can be used solely for "the experience" of being a student - whatever that is (most people would argue that it's meeting a load of people, getting drunk on a regular basis and attending the odd lecture in between). If you've got an aim behind your degree, then maybe academic achievement is on the agenda, but if you're not working in any particular direction, keeping your options open and avoiding those pesky limitations, then that's fine too - everyone knows that just having a degree is guaranteed to get you where you eventually decide you want to be, since they work as fast tickets into the workplace nowadays.
The best thing about being a student is that you don't have to be a grown up. You're in a wonderful limbo between dependence and independence, not needing to be completely responsible for your actions since your parents are always there to pick up the bill for any monetary problems, and free to do whatever you want because you're away from home, in "the best years of your life" and with access to more pubs and clubs than you could possibly think of. Being a grown-up? That's not for many years to come - students need to live their lives to the fullest before they can even start to think about all that.
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I do wonder when I became a "grown up". And when and where the cynicism kicked in.
I sat in a discussion with the rest of my Actions and Interventions group today, arguing the case for those of us who think getting into £19k worth of debt isn't worth it if you're just at uni because you were told it was the right/best thing to or because you're there just for "the experience". If I've learnt anything from this module, it's that most students feel lonely quite a lot of the time, despite being around thousands of other academics and people with the same interests. Most of us have felt depressed at some point, whether it be clinical or just feeling a bit blue and homesick. And most of us have so little money, you'd be lucky to get one night out a month where you could buy enough to get roaring drunk. Is all that worth the debt? What kind of experience is it you're paying for if it's not the education you rate?
As someone at university with an agenda - to leave Leeds with a 2:1 or 1:1 to go on to achieve QTS - it's incredibly frustrating to have to work alongside people who are simply there for "the experience". They are the ones who are getting the stereotypical experience, because they're putting all of their time, money and effort into everything but the educational experience, complaining at the same time about the standard of teaching and the content of the lessons, only half of which they attend. I was told on application to the university that I was one of over 9000, and that I'd be lucky to become one of the 90 odd who actually got accepted. It angers me to think of all those other people who wanted to be here so much when half the people I come across don't want to be here, have thought about dropping out, or have just given up already.
Academic achievement isn't the priority for a proportion of students "studying" at university in our society. Doing the reading for the session or getting an essay finished any time before a few hours before the due time is still looked down on, even though everyone here supposedly did that in high school to be able to get where they are now. Apathy kicked in somewhere in the application process and just "a degree" of any level in any subject seems to be the goal for some people I come across. The number of people hoping to continue with drama after BA? A handful.
Being a student allows you to postpone becoming a grown up. Those of us who start our adult lives as students won't be leaving home for several years after we graduate because of the amount of debt we're in. We're bestowed with limited responsibility masquerading as independence whilst we're at university because we're living away from home, but in reality we're given the money to get through everything by a loans company or by our parents, so we're never in a situation where we're not depending on anyone. The debt ensures that this will continue for several years, where, at the same time, the 16-year-old school leavers will have more money and possibly property behind them than we hope to have 5-10 years after graduation.
Maybe I'm too serious about things. I don't aim to travel for a few years after leaving (how would I afford it anyway?) or anything else away from Norwich, I just want to secure myself a job I'm going to be happy to work in for 40 odd years, have a home and a family. Yes, I'm "limiting" myself by having hopes and plans, but is it really limitation? Isn't what I'm doing more about enabling? I've hopefully got about 60 or so years left in me - why would I want to concentrate all the good times into 5 or 6 years and be miserable, in large amounts of debt and with no direction in life for the other 55?
I sat in a discussion with the rest of my Actions and Interventions group today, arguing the case for those of us who think getting into £19k worth of debt isn't worth it if you're just at uni because you were told it was the right/best thing to or because you're there just for "the experience". If I've learnt anything from this module, it's that most students feel lonely quite a lot of the time, despite being around thousands of other academics and people with the same interests. Most of us have felt depressed at some point, whether it be clinical or just feeling a bit blue and homesick. And most of us have so little money, you'd be lucky to get one night out a month where you could buy enough to get roaring drunk. Is all that worth the debt? What kind of experience is it you're paying for if it's not the education you rate?
As someone at university with an agenda - to leave Leeds with a 2:1 or 1:1 to go on to achieve QTS - it's incredibly frustrating to have to work alongside people who are simply there for "the experience". They are the ones who are getting the stereotypical experience, because they're putting all of their time, money and effort into everything but the educational experience, complaining at the same time about the standard of teaching and the content of the lessons, only half of which they attend. I was told on application to the university that I was one of over 9000, and that I'd be lucky to become one of the 90 odd who actually got accepted. It angers me to think of all those other people who wanted to be here so much when half the people I come across don't want to be here, have thought about dropping out, or have just given up already.
Academic achievement isn't the priority for a proportion of students "studying" at university in our society. Doing the reading for the session or getting an essay finished any time before a few hours before the due time is still looked down on, even though everyone here supposedly did that in high school to be able to get where they are now. Apathy kicked in somewhere in the application process and just "a degree" of any level in any subject seems to be the goal for some people I come across. The number of people hoping to continue with drama after BA? A handful.
Being a student allows you to postpone becoming a grown up. Those of us who start our adult lives as students won't be leaving home for several years after we graduate because of the amount of debt we're in. We're bestowed with limited responsibility masquerading as independence whilst we're at university because we're living away from home, but in reality we're given the money to get through everything by a loans company or by our parents, so we're never in a situation where we're not depending on anyone. The debt ensures that this will continue for several years, where, at the same time, the 16-year-old school leavers will have more money and possibly property behind them than we hope to have 5-10 years after graduation.
Maybe I'm too serious about things. I don't aim to travel for a few years after leaving (how would I afford it anyway?) or anything else away from Norwich, I just want to secure myself a job I'm going to be happy to work in for 40 odd years, have a home and a family. Yes, I'm "limiting" myself by having hopes and plans, but is it really limitation? Isn't what I'm doing more about enabling? I've hopefully got about 60 or so years left in me - why would I want to concentrate all the good times into 5 or 6 years and be miserable, in large amounts of debt and with no direction in life for the other 55?
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, February 26, 2008 at 5:35 pm.
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Wow - this is serious stuff - maybe you have just been an adult for a long time!!! You think like one, have more ambition and aim than many "adults" I know and the common sense to see things as they are. All in all, I can say I'm very proud to have been involved in this growing up process!!
Love you xx
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