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March 28, 2024, 03:45:40 PM

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"Students"....

Started by Phillippe Lambert, October 28, 2006, 03:33:03 AM

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phes

QuoteExcept of course the ones who enjoy letting their eyes roam quietly over well-clad curves and their imagination wander a little.

Sounds as though you're selling a sofa

Captain Crunch

Believe me if you saw the state of these slags you'd rather hump a sofa.

I know University has always been seen - maybe from the outside - as a place to get lots of action so why get silly about it all of a sudden?  Surely students are the people who need to advertise the least, not the most?

Anon

Quote from: "Beagle 2"I don't really get how crap student irony seems to have remained stuck in the same era since I was in my first year in 2000, it still all seems button moon eighties nights and fucking Hasslehoff. Surely 18 year olds now didn't grow up with that?

Well the thing is that the current generation that's in or will start university in a year or two have had their culture largely formed by the internet - and the internet (well, the bits that aren't Wikipedia or porn) is largely Hasslehoff photoshops and Chuck Norris e-mails.  There seems to be a bit of an unspoken rule now that even though there's no way these people watched Button Moon or whatever, you don't say that out loud and spoil the whole thing, or at least that's been my experience at college.

The Duck Man

Quote from: "Mister Cairo"You only have two semesters a year? How long is each semester?
Well, two semesters, three terms. Semester one is the autumn term and three weeks of the spring term. Semester two lasts to the end of spring term and the 6 week "May term".

KateD

Quote from: "hencole"they only hangout with people of the same age, who all have very similar outlooks on life. When you get older you realise that people are different ages, have different aspirations, different self interests and different intelects.
Politics is the obvious one. You can't change the world over night, it's slightly more complex than that. Whilst a lot of people still hold on their views on where they would like the world to go they realise the limits to idealism.
Snobbery is a big problem too with students, which gerenally declines over time when they realise that those who didn't go to university are their equals.
Ironic stupid fashions and pastimes. Sure they can be fun, but only if you've got nothing better to do with your time.
A lot of this applies to middleclass kids whether they go to uni or not, just more so with students.

How many students have you actually conversed with recently? I'm in my final year this year and I have friends whose ages range from 17 to late 30s, some of whom have never been to university, all of whom have very different aspirations and are of varying intellects, though none of them are stupid. The majority of them are not students. I don't think this is a particularly rare occurance either. And I think most of them have a fairly good idea that you can't change the world overnight. The level of patronisation on this thread is quite astonishing.

Also the idea that it's a doddle with loads of time to do nothing is just not true - for me, anyway. Okay, there is a fair amount of spare time and I know people at many universities do not have an essay of 2000plus words to do each week and can thus spend a lot of time doing very little, but why does that matter? They're paying a lot of money for the privilege these days. Also many of the people I know in jobs seem to spend most of the day messing around on the internet.

I would agree with the snobbery issue though, although I think it's more arrogance than snobbery. Still, why worry? For the most part it is idealism and optimism and I'm sure we'll be brought down to earth soon enough.

Emergency Lalla Ward Ten

Quote from: "hencole"
Politics is the obvious one. You can't change the world over night, it's slightly more complex than that.

To be fair, though, the 'What you have to realise, once you start paying income tax...' type people are just as tiresome. At least naive students have a bit of spark to them. The enthusaism hasn't been beaten out of them, which is good.

I do agree that the idea of university being a cross-section of society is bollocks though. My experience was that students generally tended to think within the same frame of reference, with all disagreements being pretty superficial. It was my non-student friends who held the genuinely radical/inspirational views.

It's odd that the working population still regard students with disdain, now that grants are abolished and people have to pay their own way at college. Is it just a work ethic thing? The inbuilt assumption that spending three years studying books is somehow unhealthy, decadent and selfish?

23 Daves

Quote from: "Emergency Lalla Ward Ten"It's odd that the working population still regard students with disdain, now that grants are abolished and people have to pay their own way at college. Is it just a work ethic thing? The inbuilt assumption that spending three years studying books is somehow unhealthy, decadent and selfish?

I think it's envy, personally - always have.  Most of the arguments about students always seem to come from a slightly snide "If I were in your shoes I'd work a damn sight harder, you don't know you're born" perspective. It reeks of jealousy.  It is sold as being an incredibly good, decadent lifestyle - more so than it actually is, in my opinion (if me or any of my friends had even a quarter as many sexual relationships as everyone seemed to promise I think we'd have been over the moon) - and I think people who have never been really believe that's true.  "They do nothing but drink beer and have sex all day, and I have to do this bloody job I hate".

If I had my own way, of course, everyone in society would have at least a year off to do what they wanted, be that study, piss off abroad, sit at home watching Trisha or joining some special branch of the army.  Just a year where you could think about who you really were before committing yourself to a career.  It's quite sad the way society doesn't really allow everyone a bit of personal thinking and/or discovery space.  I'm not quite sure how this would be policed, mind you, and I'm also not entirely sure that any of you should take me particularly seriously.  It's just a mad thought, that's all.