|
The Turd Degree
From BoF 3
Regular
BoF readers will know that the search for self-fulfilment is not for the faint
at heart. So far I’ve avoided acupuncture, massaged myself with guinea pigs and
played 18 holes of golf in an attempt to get that instant hit of tranquillity –
but to no avail. There is, however, an alternative to these aforementioned
quick fixes: something into which you can channel your energies and focus your
attention on over a number of years in an attempt to ‘better yourself’ (or get
a promotion as it’s more commonly known). Not content with crushing my own
morale in short, one-off bursts, I recently finished 4 gruelling years of
last-minute essays and Googled research. Welcome friends to the torture that is
‘The Part Time Degree…’
Lets just get this out in the open right from
the off – the degree was sought for possible financial gain and nothing else.
I’m not one of those people who do a degree for ‘the challenge of it’ or any of
that other theoretical toss. Quite simply, I was presented with an ultimatum by
my boss: get a degree or face years of de-stapling leaflets for peanuts. This
is an important point to remember as I take you through the chamber of horrors
that is part-time studying. Had the course been concerned with ‘Haunted lap
dancing bars in Barbados’
as opposed to ‘Information Management’, my enthusiasm may not have waned quite
so quickly.
I had never been to University before. Upon
completion of my A-levels I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life, but I
knew it didn’t involve spending 3 years pretending that I did and getting into
debt. This meant that my part-time degree would be a BSc. As I was to discover,
there’s no kudos to be found there. Colleagues and acquaintances assume you’re
doing a MA, MBA or PhD and have to fight back the vomit when they discover it’s
merely Higher Education for beginners that you’re toiling with. You’re an
undergraduate: which is Latin for scum.
Four
years of anything is quite a daunting prospect, and four years of listening
to/writing about absolute dross is no different. To begin with, just what is
Information Management? Well:
“Information
is an all-pervasive commodity. The aims of the programme are to establish the
significance of the dynamic role of information work in the 'information
society and knowledge-based economy' and to develop the knowledge and skills
needed to handle effectively the storage, retrieval, analysis and communication
of information”
So, it’s as simple as that then. If you’re
anything like me you’ll need to read that at least 3 times in order to force it
through the brain’s natural bullshit filter. After extensive examination, the
content seems to translate into plain English as:
“Information
is an ambiguous term and can mean absolutely fucking anything. This course
hides behind the pretence of being worthwhile when actually all it is concerned
with is how to put things in a filing system and communicate with other members
of the human race – which, ironically, are skills which come naturally to most
adults of moderate intelligence and above”
Of course, I was only able to perform such a
translation as I’m now a fully qualified Information Management thingy.
As well as the prospect of being lumbered with
the world’s dullest topic for nigh-on half a decade, there were other concerns.
I was going to be a ‘part-time’ student, which, as I found out very quickly,
puts you right at the bottom of everyone’s list of priorities. Also, I was
going to be a ‘mature’ student. That was particularly problematic given the
fact that I’m only in my mid-20s. Had I been 18-21 I would have fitted in quite
nicely with all the other spotty virgins. If I’d been 30-40 I could have played
the ‘yeah, I’ve got life experience - just call me Dad’ card. If I’d been 40+ I
could have grown my hair and gone for the ‘Doc Brown from Back To The Future’ eccentric elder approach. But mid 20s…it’s not
good. Everyone seems to assume at least one of the following:
a) This is your fifth attempt at University
following failures on the Computer Game Design and Golf Course Management
programmes.
b) You’ve had some dreadful illness that’s
kept you out of uni for 5 years
c) You’re only 19 but you’ve had a very hard
childhood
d) You’ve just come back to perve over the 18
year old girls
So, to surmise so far: I’m effectively being forced
into 4 years of studying a drab subject as a 3rd class citizen
whilst being considered a dropout/weirdo by my undergraduate peers. Oh, and I
have to pay considerable fees for the pleasure. The one thing I thought would
stand me in good stead was that, as a fully fledged adult, I would be treated
with some respect by the establishment. I
know about responsibilities and deadlines and what’s more I can sit through a
lecture without delving into my nasal cavity in search of delicious treats.
Therefore, surely the process will be less gruelling than it could be?
But this is not the case. It’s a bit like
going into a well know fast food chain (which, for the sake of this example,
we’ll call McDonough’s) and asking for a hamburger without relish. Theoretically there’s a stage less to the
preparation progress and therefore logically you should receive you burger
quicker. However, all you’ve done is taken a stage out of the highly automated
routine. Monkey no function without routine. Hence you get Wayne, his name-badge full of holes where
stars may one day reside, running round in small circles and asking the lettuce
washers for advice. Your burger arrives 5 minutes later than usual (with
relish). This same logic applies to the mature undergraduate: theoretically
simpler to handle but with no standard protocol. So, for protection, the
University staff default to the setting of ‘treat you like an idiot’.
Once the course began it became apparent that
my 4 years at University were going to be concerned with one thing: contempt. I
had contempt for the course, contempt for my classmates, contempt for the
tutors…everyone was stupid but me. How did this come about? Well…
The
Tutors. ‘Don’t teach Granny to suck eggs’ is a stupid saying. For starters,
Granny shouldn’t have been fannying about with the eggs when she should have
been filling the tin bath for Granddad and getting the ironing done. Surely a
more apt saying would be ‘Don’t teach granny how to get the Countdown
Conundrum’ or ‘don’t teach granny how to make ill-fitting knitwear’. However,
the point is that there’s only so much patronising one man can take. When
you’ve spend 5 years in a profession that’s none-too complicated to begin with,
only to have the finer points explained in minute theoretical detail by someone
living in an idealistic utopian dream world…[we have omitted some entries very
similar to the rant already displayed. If you like, we can repeat the rant with
the omitted ranting included]
The
Classmates. The fact that you’ve done the job counts for nothing. The fact that
you’ve got interesting things to say counts for nothing. The fact that you’ve
got a life and a mortgage and kids counts for nothing. You are simply ‘creepy
older guy’. Your opinion is not sought because they know everything. Because
they’ve seen it on Hollyoaks or because Daddy works in The City. And they’re
tired and they haven’t had time. Tired?? No fucking time??? ‘Listen pal, I’ve
got a full time job and two little kids at home. I’ve had 2 hours sleep last
night and I’m having an extension built by Neanderthals…’ I said, pointing my
walking cane at them and hurling my flat cap to the ground.
The
course. So much superfluous shite: making animations with Flash (one day I made
a square move – life in the fast lane, people) and an internet gateway for
information on wrestling have not proved to be critical to my day-to-day job as
of yet.
And so, on I plodded for 4 long years: doing
group work with overenthusiastic morons, hammering out last-minute essays and
discovering the unimportance of proper research. Amusingly, this was all
accompanied by ongoing commentary from my fellow students about how hard it all
was – which was total bollocks. Without meaning to sounds arrogant, it was not
difficult to pass the course if your expectations are fair. Given that I had a
full time job, a family and a life outside of University I would have been
foolish to aim for 100%. I set myself a target of a 2.1, knowing full well that
I did not have the inclination to make the sacrifices that a first would
require (i.e. read the books and not just make it all up). However, some of my
classmates who, quite frankly, couldn’t have achieved a first in practical
breathing, set themselves more lofty targets and got something of a cob on when
it all started to go the way of the pear. By the end of 4 years I had mastered
the standard responses of ‘yeah, I don’t know how they expect us to do it all’
and ‘you’ll be fine, stop crying’ in an attempt to minimise the whinging.
After 4 years tolerating over-eager hags
prattling on about ‘information literacy’ (whatever that is) came on last
life-sapping obstacle: the dissertation. Whereas this resulted in many
sleepless nights and a lot of prescription medication for some of my peers, I
decided to not venture from the academic path which, by now, I had trodden well
– i.e. I did it in a week. And passed! With a 2.1. Take that world, I screwed
the system. Well, I neglected the system. In fact I conformed to the system,
just in a half-arsed way. Which is better.
This success allowed me to live the dream that
is the graduation ceremony. And what a bloody expensive dream it turns out to
be. For only £35 you can hire an
ill-fitting cap and gown for just over an hour. In fact, ill-fitting does not
do the cap justice, as rather than fitting snugly on my head in the
conventional manner, it merely perched there like I was performing some kind of
circus balancing act. When the moment eventually came, following much rambling
and sceptres and swords being waved around in some kind of ceremonial manner (I
couldn’t help wondering if all that went on when it was still a polytechnic),
I’ll remember my handshake with the chancellor of the University forever. Not
because he had inspiring things to say to me (I believe it was something along
the lines of ‘you’re a bit old for an undergraduate aren’t you sonny?’) but
because the man had the best handshake in the history of unspoken agreement.
Anyone who has been involved at a graduation ceremony outside of Oxbridge will
know that it’s low on ceremony, high on treating people like cattle and getting
it all over with within a rather constricting timeframe. To improve the process
the chancellor had developed a technique I like to call ‘the shake and drag’.
Nervous undergraduates like myself take to the stage when our name is called,
shuffle into the middle and offer the chancellor a clammy paw. He grabs your
hand with some force and simultaneously shakes it and pulls you towards the
stage exit at the same time, reducing the amount of dithering you do in front
of several hundred people – and thus keeping the whole process ticking over.
What a guy. What a handshake.
With the whole University experience over
(and, rather worryingly, summed up nicely in only a few paragraphs…) all that
remains is to wait for the inevitable promotion that my 4 years of toil have no
doubt merited. At this moment, the wait continues, although I did get a
congratulatory note in the staff bulletin. Which made it all worthwhile…
The
order of merit
Having now spent an extended amount of time in
an academic institute, the world of qualification/title snobbery has become
apparent. No matter how many pretentious essays you’ve written or how much
useless research you’ve carried out – someone’s always done more. So, what kudos
do your qualifications get you?
GCSEs/GCEs/O-LEVELS – absolutely
worthless in an academic setting, they come free inside packets of Shreddies in
Buckinghamshire.
NVQs/GNVQs – confirmation that
you are indeed a fully qualified bricklayer or hairdresser does not come in the
form of a certificate, but instead as a Chinese tattoo on the lower part of
your back …
A-Levels/AS-Levels – 2 years worth of
your life that can be conveniently packed into a 30-second aside to people
you’ve just met at the 24th Annual Conference on Computational
Metashite
BSc/BA – The lowest form of
qualification recognised by the academic community. Trying to be taken
seriously in a H.E. setting without one is a bit like trying to get into a posh
nightclub whilst wearing trainers. And your trousers on your head.
MSc/MA – We’re moving up the
scale now and finally beginning to earn a bit of respect form the academic
community. Although we’re soon brought beck to reality with occasional comments
along the lines of ‘What? No doctorate? Wankaaaaaaaa!!!’
MBA – Men of a certain
age and profession seem to wake up one day and rather than saying ‘Hmm, I need
a shit’ they’ll say ‘Hmm, I’ll do an MBA’. So good for the career it’s a
virtual boss’s blowjob on paper.
PhD – You’ve finally
gained acceptance. More importantly you can now tick the ‘other’ box on forms
that ask for a title. No more deleting Mr/Mrs/Miss/Ms as appropriate for you.
Becoming
a Prof.
- You are a Sultan in your chosen area of nerdery. You can now go totally
insane and it’ll always just be classed as eccentricity.
At this point the higher statuses of academia
appear to just be made up as you go along. Seemingly, you can just start adding
letters to your name willy-nilly depending on your line of study. Even further
beyond this, you can start changing to meaning of existing words in the English
language and clag them on the end of your name. My personal favourite is being
‘a Chair’ ‘I’m a Chair in thermodynamics don’t you know’. Should a similar line
be presented to you laced in arrogance from some academic tosspot, experience
has taught me that an ideal retort is ‘Really? Well I’m a sideboard in
masturbation’.
|
