In the playcentre
Tim and I sat in the play centre, sharing a pot of coffee and discussing academia.
Tim is an academic and had wondered aloud if I knew any suitable candidates for a new research project he is in charge of. There's funding for it, and Tim is keen to get started. He just needs the right person to do the work.
We talk about undergraduates. Tim rolls his eyes upward.
"You do get some who are good," he conceds. "Some who are genuinely interested and want to study; but that's usually the older ones who have been away from education for a while and have come back.
"But too many of them are just so thick." He looks fed up and disgusted. "They just don't seem to understand what the point of doing a degree is."
I nod.
"I was one of them," I tell him. "I pissed away the first two years of my degree and only started working in the final year. What a waste."
"That's what a majority of people do," agrees Tim. He goes on:
"Thing is, all that's needed is the willingness to do a moderate amount of work every day.
"If you'd done three or four hours a day, five days a week, for all three years of your degree -- well, you'd be laughing. That's how to do well.
"And if you think about it, anyone who found themselves in paid employment where they only had to do three or four hours a day, five days a week, would be roaring with laughter wouldn't they? It would be a dream job for most people."
I nod again. Tim's right. I pour more tea and watch our sons playing on inflatable bouncy things, musing on my time as a student and wondering how things might have been different if I'd made more of an effort to work.
Labels: writing
