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Post by tory on Jul 22, 2023 16:00:57 GMT
Men are waking up and turning away. Women are still pursuing the college dream. Expect more chaos. Yeah, men are waking up. If by waking up you mean the government is pleading for skilled tradespeople now that they've kicked anyone with any practical use out of your country. Who has been "kicked out"?
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Post by Reasonable good Nick on Jul 31, 2023 12:07:18 GMT
And yeah, it might look like arsing around, that's probably fair enough. But back then, at least, we weren't really a burden on tax-paying citizens. That's exactly what we were. Someone else had to pay for our education/mucking about. Fees and grants for the cost of living. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad someone did. But now that I'm the someone who would have to pay for it, I'm more ambivalent.
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Post by Reasonable good Nick on Jul 31, 2023 12:13:13 GMT
Anyway, I did my BA at what is now the University of Lincoln between 92-95. It was Humberside Poly when I applied, and languished at the bottom of the rankings, whereas for the last fifteen years or so it's been comfortably in the top 30-40 universities in the UK, so I always say Lincoln when I'm asked.
I've worked in higher education since 2004, and in 2019 I completed a part time MA at the university where I work.
I enjoyed my first degree and attended everything, paid attention in lectures etc, but I was lazy and lacked rigour when it came to writing essays, so it was fair enough that I got only a 2:2.
I worked much harder on my MA (despite doing it alongside a full time job) and got a lot more out of it, academically speaking. The old adage about education being wasted on the young was true in my case.
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fange
god
Listening to long jazz tracks
Posts: 4,559
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Post by fange on Jul 31, 2023 13:42:55 GMT
Yep, 5 years completed at Monash Uni. in Melbourne, the old Clayton campus in the early 90s.
Did my 3-year B.A. with majors in English and History and a minor in Philosophy. Enjoyed the mental challenges of text analysis and writing, and largely ended up with distinctions and high distinctions. Enjoyed the social life without getting lost in it, and as it was just down the road from my home growing up i still hung out mostly with my high school mates.
Followed that with a 1-year Grad. Diploma in Education, (English and History) which has qualified me to have the 26-year teaching career i've had in Japan, Australia and Hong Kong.
Before getting into teaching though, i decided to do a 1-year Honours Degree in English after that, to see if further academic studies were for me, but i really struggled to dedicate myself to it and realised i had run my race at Uni. and was ready to hit the wider world. I did complete my minor thesis, a 12-15,000 word piece on the works of the Greek-American writer Harry Mark Petrakis. I think i ended up with a distinction, but i still remember one of the comments from my professors saying it read in parts like a long book blurb, rather than a staid, boring analytical piece, i guess. Writing something that long gave me tremendous practice at writing though, and to this day i still feel i will put my writing muscles to further use, somehow and some way.
After Uni. i did not want to get tied to a full time teaching job in Aus. straight away - i got lots of part time or casual jobs at warehouses and factories so i could travel the world, which i did until early '97, when i got a job teaching at a private English language school in Japan (the now defunct Nova schools) and apart from a few weeks here and there i've been a full time teacher ever since.
Because i have spent so much of my working life outside Aus., i wasn't forced to pay off my higher education debt. It was sitting there slowly accrueing further interest for decades; i finally paid it off just 2 years ago, 27 years after leaving Uni. Maybe i should have saved on interest and paid it off earlier, but it was kind of outta sight outta mind, sadly.
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