Uni — ooh! ah! — what is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Well, actually…

The other day in my tutorial we were discussing the “culture” of the current university I’m completing my Masters in. After much discussion and comparisons with our undergrad experiences at other universities, a few themes revealed themselves. Apart from the Fail Boat that University Administration seemed to find themselves sailing in, the most common observation about the culture of the university was that it was focused on churning out “well-rounded professionals”, as opposed to liberal Arts wankers who could wax poetically about Baudrillard and simulacra, but couldn’t lodge a tax return to save their life.

 

Arts Degrees: Please take one.

 

This is most telling in the fact that my current university does not offer a straight Arts degree. Arts and Humanities subjects must be compounded with another ‘practical’ degree. As someone who graduated from an Arts degree, and is doing her Masters in a specific vocation, I found it to be interesting to consider what kind of value we place on higher education; what we believe a university degree should represent; and what we believe the university experience should be about.

Last year there was a major brouhaha when the University of Melbourne introduced the Melbourne Model. For those uninitiated, UMelb wanted to restructure their undergraduate curriculum to one similar to the university structure found in the States. The controversy was more focused on the loss of jobs, and limited places for students, as opposed to the model itself, which I actually believe has its merits. So, let’s forget for a second here that a whole heap of people who’ve decided to pursue academia as a “career” are now living out of an abandoned shopping trolley [1], and entry to an already competitive uni just got even harder, and let’s look towards forcing young people to pursue a generalist degree before spacialisation. I think that’s a freaking good idea.

Why do I think it’s a good idea? Because I’m a wanker, and I’m biased by my experience. And do you really expect a sheltered, 18-year-old to know what they want to do for the rest of their life? I think a generalist undergraduate degree is a good foundation before embarking on a more vocational degree. And also because I like the idea of learning for learning’s sake. Of course that does bring certain issues to the fore; particularly: funding to higher education.

During the Howard years funding to higher education was significantly cut back, which resulted in staff cuts, HECS places being cut in favour of fee-paying places, our brightest minds fleeing overseas for better work opportunities, and ultimately VSU was introduced (and it’s something that some university activists just can’t flipping get over. It’s done. It’s here. Just. Let. It. Go.)

 

The uni repaved the front of the library with cobblestones to deter the Socialist kids from campaigning. Trufax.

 

I guess I could go on a long-winded diatribe on the cultural shift such policies foster, and the ramifications that has on our local industry and our academia, but that’d be boring. Instead I’ll look towards something more abstract: oursourcing to the private sector, and in effect creating a dependence on the free market. In other words, is this Raegan-like anti-intellcutalism at work here in Australia?!

Now, I’m not just talking about a general aversion towards pseudo-intellectual wankers who get off on deconstructing Bret Easton Ellis and then relating it to Heideggar’s theories of ‘dasein’ (guilty as fucking charged); but, rather, I’m referring to how, then, we conceive of universities. Are they sandstone institutes of knowledge dedicated to the pursuit of episteme; or merely factories that create slaves to the market? And, yes, I do realise this dichotomy is extreme.

In all honesty, though, I only took Arts because I didn’t know what I wanted to be when I “grew up”. Granted, my UAI wasn’t too crash hot, either — but whatevs. I couldn’t take a gap year because it was expressly foreboden by my parents (they’re Filipino and think I’m a flake); and the only work experience I had was being a retail-bitch, either forced to listen to Delta Goodrem on repeat for a whole month or selling overpriced jeans to teenagers – so I wasn’t going to be getting a “proper” job anytime too soon, either. Really, I was lost.

See? Pretty.

I applied to a Sandstone for my undergrad because of the pretty campus. I’m not even kidding. Of course there’s a certain ‘prestige’ associated with the university, and having one of the best Humanities faculties in the world didn’t hurt either. But, I figured, if I was going to take up a language for a semester, then drop it; change majors 4 times; enroll into Jamaican Popular Culture for shits and giggles; discuss why Ferris Bueller is a youth hero; fail a subject on The Crusades; learn about dual economies in Latin America; and declare to my class that listening to my English lecturer speak made me cream myself; I may as well do it at a pretty campus.

I think it’s quite evident that I was a restless and commitment-phobic student. And, yes, I treated university as a glorified daycare centre. However, I think I’m not only a better person for having that experience, but also a better employee. For one thing, I think it broadened my worldview, or at least refined it. Not to mention, I can sit lofty atop my ivory tower and snigger knowingly at all the references on The Daily Show.

But the disdain I received from non-Arts students upon learning what my degree was seemed to be shared by those outside the segregated walls of the university. The common question posed to me was, “So what job will you get with that?” Well, I don’t bloody know. It was only after the umpteenth time I replied, full of hot air, with a, “Well, actually, an Arts degree creates a myriad of career pathways…” that I came to realise that, in actuality, an Arts degree functioned as my gap year (a three and a half year one, that is.)

No, but seriously, stay with me here, it provided me with the time to explore my interests, my strengths (and weaknesses), and provided me with valuable life and academic experience, you know, without all that cultural immersion bullshit that comes with living abroad; because, really, I got enough of that at home. No matter how coming-of-age it all sounds, I was able to “find myself”; and for someone as directionless as I am, this was a revelation.

May or may not be the supposed "Motivation Pill".

Of course, I had all the symptoms of the middle-class Australian kid, and so I had the luxury of spending three and a half years to soul-search, cultivate friendships, and travel when the feeling got me right — in other words, just fart-assing around until an epiphany about my future hit me. [2] In my final year of my Masters, and after scoring an internship at an NGO, I’m finally pursuing something I’ll probably end up doing for the rest of my life. It was like I took some Motivation Pill and I suddenly, now, have tunnel vision to pursuing my career. And, yes, I still snort when I use that word in relation to me.

I won’t exactly be sacrificing any of my travel dreams or selling my soul for a mortgage in the near future, but there is a strange comfort with the feeling that my life is somewhat on track. And, really, I don’t think I’d ever have gotten to this point without the experience of my Arts degree. So, what does it say about our attitude towards higher education when people turn their noses up to a degree that I believe has actually been a valuable experience for me?

I know a lot of students who feel like their lives are in limbo; going into their fourth or fifth year of their degree(s), slogging out their final semesters to finally get a job, or questioning why they decided to undertake that degree in the first place. That kind of crisis so late in the game can be kind of jarring. It’s the same kind of frustration I felt all throughout undergrad; ever burdened by my emo-existentialism and questioning what the hell it was all for.

Not everyone gets that moment of clarity, but I see it as more of a series of moments, all building up towards something greater, much grander than we may understand when we’re fresh high school graduates lodging our university preferences. I’ve come a long way from the kid who undertook the philosophy of not stressing myself out for the HSC, skipping class in favour of napping outside the Senior Common Room. And, sure, some people have known what they wanted to be since they were, like, five; and uni isn’t for everyone. But, for me, and I’m sure for many others like me, I find myself coming full circle.

 

My moment of clarity.

 

University isn’t the be all and end all. I know that my individual worth doesn’t rest solely on some piece of paper telling me that I’m now a functioning member of society. I know that the world has so much more to offer than textbooks and discussing the patriarchal structures that continue to oppress women (tongue-firmly-in-cheek); but this pointless Arts degree of mine helped me understand that world. I have my book-smarts, now I’m ready for some of this “real world” experience that employers keep harping on about.

Because, I also know, that even if it felt like it at times, the last few years haven’t been spent in vain. I know it’s corny, but there’s something kind of poetic about being able to look back at all the things I’ve read, the papers I handed in late, the lectures I spent writing smut, the people I met, the unending afternoons at Manning, my various crises angsting about my future, all the wins and all my losses, to realise I not only came to a better understanding of who I am and the world I live in, but that I had a fucking good time, and I’d do it all again… even if my mum still does my tax returns. Just don’t mention the HECS debt my “learning curve” has incurred.

[1] I know what you’re thinking: “And this is different to employed academics… how…?”

[2] I’m quite self-aware that I’m a pampered, privileged Generation Y-er.