One Girl Revolution

Don’t You Lecture Me!
The word “lecture” isn’t something generally associated with good vibes. If you’re lecturing someone, you’re boring them to sleep while ranting on and on.

Classes started this week at Armpit City University, and it didn’t take me long to realise that university is not set up for commuters. These kids carry practically nothing with them! How on earth do they manage? Oh, right, they’ve all got iPhones to check their email and can drop in to the dorms to pick up and unload stuff. I’ve got to carry everything with me. Learning to downsize my bag is one of the biggest lessons I’ve had to learn this week. No, Aeryn, you really don’t need to bring your netbook every day. You’ve got public access computers all over the place. Suck it up and use them, preferably without doing an Adrian Monk and wiping down the mouse.

My first proper lecture went pretty smoothly, and the other people in my classes seem really nice. I even made a contribution. Where did this sudden fear of public speaking come from? Me, the tiny five year old girl singing and dancing to entertain the other customers in the hairdressers’, and then going on to join the local youth theatre? During the five hour(!) gap between my two classes, I even typed up my notes and submitted a piece of homework well before the deadline. How very studious of me.

It has occurred to me that university is a lot like a flat-pack piece of furniture. Imagine receiving a furniture catalogue through your front door and spotting the perfect piece that will finish your whole living space for good. The holy grail of furniture. It’s expensive – so much so that you are going to have to take out a large loan to cover the cost, but you decide that the benefits this furniture will bring to your life are worth it.

So you send off the form and a few weeks later, a van pulls up outside your home. Delighted, you rush out to meet the delivery guys, only to have them hand you a flat box. You have to put this furniture together yourself.

“OK,” you think, your trepidation growing. You paid all that money, and you don’t want to waste it, so you tell yourself that learning to put the thing together will be doable.

But upon opening the box, you find a piece of paper from the manufacturers.

“Please note that the following piece of furniture is incomplete. These instructions will only help you so far, and not all of the pieces are included in the box. Please proceed immediately to your preferred DIY outlet and purchase the following: 1 Philips head screwdriver; 1 monkey wrench; 1 Allen key, 30 20mm screws…”

I can’t imagine you would be too pleased. Then, reading further down the note, you see that you will also be expected to obtain a large piece of wood and use a jigsaw to cut out the shape for that wonderful frontpiece you fell in love with in the catalogue. Followed by a tiny, almost unreadable diagram.

Well, a degree is a lot like that. You pay a lot of money for it, only to be told that you still need to buy all your textbooks (the screwdrivers, screws, etc) and that your lecture notes won’t be of any help to you at all when it comes to the assignments. You’ve got to teach yourself (carving out the frontpiece yourself). Sort of makes you wonder why they call it a “tuition” fee, if the stuff they teach you in lectures isn’t enough to, you know, actually teach you what you need to pass this degree you’re paying them so much for.

And that is why university education is like flat-pack furniture from Hell.

This week also brought with it the unwelcome and yet inevitable news that the bus fares have gone up again. I can’t wait until I can (finally!) drive. Driving might not be eco-friendly, but it is certainly cheaper per mile. Hey, Government – if you want people to get out of their cars and onto public transport, stop letting them put the fares up! £1.45 to go around 2 miles one way is not on…

[image credit: Doodled desks by igoghost via stock.xchng]