Home or away?

Julian

Hi Susan,

On a different subject, are you likely to finish that Top 50 list of non-fiction books on your website? Thoroughly enjoyed 'Howard's End is on the Landing', by the way.

Private Schultz

Quite agree, though my first experience of self-reliance came before university. I deferred my entrance for a year after A-levels because I was offered a paid job with the dig on which I'd previously volunteered. I got £30 per week cash, and was able to take on a bedsit (£10 pw) that was more convenient for getting to the site. I managed to keep myself and even save a bit of money during that year. Like you, I enjoyed the opportunity to meet all sorts of people and fend for myself in the big wide world, and I'm sure it helped me grow up.

I suspect this sort of opportunity to develop one's independence is not so easily available now either, as cheap bedsits/flats are not so easy to come by.

Mind you, I think a self-sufficient streak had already been encouraged by my parents - got the ordinary bus to school on my own from the age of 6, we were free to go out for the day and explore the fringes of countryside that brushed our suburban estate, and on holidays to Robin Hood's Bay we were allowed to go off exploring beaches and rock pools from a very young age, having been given common sense advice about tides etc.

wrinkled weasel

Self-sufficiency comes in different packages. I was in no shape to take care of myself when I went away to college and did all the things you mention, the bad things that is. In my experience, what you do when you are away is predicated upon what how you were brought up. In my case, I was a blank page, with no emotional support, no guidance and no loving family to guide me and little to fall back on when things went wrong. I was saved from disaster in remarkable ways, but that is going off the topic.

By contrast, my children coped very well, having mostly lived with a mother who would not feed them regularly or wash their clothes or even be there for them at the end of the school day. They learned self-sufficiency at home, and very early on. Today they are resilient (Ten Tors, Three Peaks, walks from Wales to London, hikes through Nepal, etc, and trained and competent in Archery, Canoeing, Climbing, sailing, etc, etc,) and exceeded my expectations with their studies. They have acheived far more than I ever did, simply by having to learn the basics before they reached their teens. They did this in the context of what used to be called "a broken home". Good heavens! They have been taking planes on their own since they were in single figures and now they are both in their twenties.(And not always been collected at the other end by their mother)

Sorry if this is a bit personal, but it has to be.

And now to the part where I wholeheartedly endorse your point: Intellectually, my flight from home was breathtaking. I went from Lincolnshire to London in the early 70's and the difference is difficult to concieve of today. The culture was utterly different; I had barely seen a black person before, I had never visited a decent art gallery and I had no idea of the energy there was, in terms of ideas and the arts, available to those who lived in the capital. It was as if the scales had fallen from my eyes.

In that context, travel broadens the mind, and the one thing you can say about cliches like that, is that they are 100% reliable!

Diomalco

I did not attend university at the age of 18. Instead I had ambitions to pursue a writing career. After several teenage years running around W. Europe when I could I finally left UK for a few years, aged 21. That was the 'age of majority' then and I had no choice other than to wait before permanently taking off as my father was categoric if I did so, where ever I happened to be he would be knocking on the door with a return ticket to Home. Victorian melodrama was still alive and well in the 60's!

Having learned much from my years of travels I returned to UK and the same year my son attended university so did I as a mature student. They were radically different in their dealings with students. Although I was 25-30 years older than most students I got along very well with all. They didn't expect me to mother them and I didn't expect them to be surrogate children. What struck me then was the spectrum of ideas everyone was exposed to. For discriminating, old cynics like myself, and there were a good few, it was an opportunity to cherry pick and discover and to study in depth subjects and topics which had interested us, sometimes for many years. For the younger students it was opening a door on many different worlds. Law, as a subject, attracts many overseas students especially from Commonwealth, Middle and Far East countries and this added hugely to the 'melting pot' of new experiences. I'm sure the three years spent in this environment will always be remembered by those fortunate enough to get a place.

One of the benefits of living in at university, as I discovered both at my own and my son's was that it was also a place to explore talent and interests. For people physically attending, if they discovered their future lie in a different direction from the discipline they had arrived to pursue, it was possible to talk to tutors and students of the subject and make an informed decision. This isn't something that can be achieved through a computer. Instead, a distance learner could plod on having no idea of what is really on offer when their talent is better suited to a different subject. Maybe this can be overcome by having regular 'open days' to a certain extent which offer insights into areas other than the one being studied. Maybe, too, students who live within reasonable distance of each other could form an 'outpost', even though they study different subjects. That though, will make no difference to the sports and other physically demanding activities such as aerobics and dancing that are usually available at universities.

Given the amount of money that can be saved by distance learning both for the student's parents and the college or university it does seem likely only the wealthy will in the future actually attend and live in. A return to the elitism and advantage that disappeared to a large extent with the redbricks. A very sad state of affairs.

Nicholas J. Rogers

Interesting. I had both experiences during my BSc studies. I spent my first year in halls and found life there so dull, and my course so dry and unchallenging, that for my second and third years I lived in London and essentially worked remotely, popping in for the occasional lecture and to use the library. Most of my time I spent either reading books which had nothing to do with my course or working in Penhaligon's! (In fact, I once served Professor Wells).

Whilst the arrangement worked for me in some ways, it was not at all intellectually satisfying. But perhaps that had to do with the way my course was taught more than anything else.

I can see the arguments for increased distance learning for young people but there will never be any substitute for regular 'face-time' with tutors, allowing proper discussion and debate.

Hadrian

I have mixed feelings on this one. Scottish student life traditionally has been much more home based with the local university being the one attended. The practical benefits you describe could be seen as side effects to the chief end of a university course and degree which is to produce the highest academic accomplishments and abilities. After all, some opf the most brilliant minds have been hopelessly absent minded and impractical. One historian/linguist/theologian needed his wife just to change light bulbs!