I started my first university day by reading Tracy’s (Tracy Barnet) letter – grounding my shivery steps in this new path that none of my parents had walked neither their parents nor their parents’ parents. With the distance that separates me from my parents, I have their support through the people who surround me here. Tracy is one of them. With her encouraging voice in my ear, I walked through the door of the lecture hall. I arrived half an hour early for an additional rule I have taken– as a liaison. I needed to collect the students’ phone numbers and take their attendance.
As the students walked in, Amanda and I asked them to write down their numbers. Each reflected my nervousness. Some carried doubt in addition. I talked with one of the students on the Orientation Day. In reply to my question about what brought him to university, Peter said he didn’t know. He had put fifteen different reasons before his feet why he shouldn’t come. It didn’t make him an exception. The eldest student in the class, a seventy-three-year-old man, mumbled answering the same question. He gave five different answers and couldn’t pick one. The majority of the students came back out of the failure to attain it in the first place. And that sat on their shoulders.
The lecture started with the lecturer in front of the PowerPoint screen in the guise of all-knowing figure. Concurrently, nearly fifty students sat tight in their chairs in the guise of not knowing figures – all ear to the lecturer. Just the previous day, each was something else a barista, a barber, a businessman/woman, a waiter/waitress, a writer, and a mother. Now everyone was a student.
It was a bit disturbing for me to sit in the position of not knowing. What is university? I pondered for the rest of the day after the class. One way to think about university is deconstruction and reconstruction of identity. An old skin that needs to be shed out and give space for a new one. It can be an unpleasant process – what I felt.
The call for shedding old skin can be internal or external. For many students, it is external – family, friends, and society. For me, it is the opposite. With a subtle external call (read about it in my previous post) I need to have a strong internal reasoning. What old skin am I shedding? A question worth exploring perhaps in my next post.
I am keen to hear what university means or meant to you. Your answer may give me some clarity.
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I went to university the first time straight out of highschool, because that was what was expected of me. I didn't do very well and had to drop out in my first year. I ended up doing a trade certificate and working, and eventually a decade later came back to university. My relationship ended, I quit my job, and I moved to a different city with ten days notice and started a completely different life. I never planned to do art history, or to go on to honours, or to do my PhD. University was hard, fun, scary, stimulating... among all the different ideas, I found myself. I've been at the same institution as a undergrad and post grad and staff member for nearly 13 years, so in many ways campus feels like home physically as well as mentally. As a PhD student I've been pushed to and beyond my intellectual boundaries. Now I'm at the end of my time as a student. I am sad to leave, but going to university was the best decision I made.
When I started out, university was the means to reliable employment. I was young with no financial support from family, so I needed to set myself up financially. I started out in English because I loved reading and writing, but then took a year out to rethink it. I returned to complete a degree in International Business. I didn’t love it, but I loved some electives so I got through. I knew I wanted my career to be international, and business would give me work skills. I then did something very unpopular in academia… I had children and stayed home for 9 years to raise them. I was a strong feminist who expected the feminists around me to support my free choice. I was disappointed. The same day my youngest started school, I started grad school. Then University was a pathway into a new career, one that was more internationally focused. I loved the intellectual challenge and found a topic I wanted to explore more deeply. I never anticipated more schooling, but my supervisor felt my questions needed answers and recommended I do a PhD. That was crazy, with three children and study abroad! There I found my passion for research with children. I also became deeply committed to evidence informed practice. Somehow, by God’s grace, these experiences combined to bring me to where I am, leading research and innovation projects that aim to advance child protection and wellbeing. We don’t know where the road will lead when we start. It’s important to be very pragmatic (will I get a job if I study this?), but also explore what fascinates you and see where it leads… while being present to yourself and your work today.