If you could wind back the clock ....

[Hornspieler]

Originally Posted by anotherbob
... They grow up feeling superior, experiencing praise daily and by the time they reach the age of eleven many are conviced they are god's gift to humanity destined to lord it over the lesser types who comprise the other 85% of their age group. This is obviously an erroneous assumption which will rebound on them badly in their adult life.

That first sentence may be true of some who were "born with silver spoons in their mouths" but I would suggest that the majority of "Oxbridge" graduates make a vast contribution to this country's prosperity and welfare, for the ultimate benefit of all its citizens

HS

[JanH]

Only on for a few hours in the evening, eh?

...not that olden, just a couple of years :-) I enjoy daily classical music from KBSC but would still appreciate an intelligent and varied presentation from our own BBC Radio 3.

Has everyone else given up listening to Radio 3, no one appears to mention it these days, or like us, have you all given up in disgust?
FF continues to work on our behalf and it is much appreciated.

[Bryn]

...not that olden, just a couple of years :-) I enjoy daily classical music from KBSC but would still appreciate an intelligent and varied presentation from our own BBC Radio 3.

Has everyone else given up listening to Radio 3, no one appears to mention it these days, or like us, have you all given up in disgust?
FF continues to work on our behalf and it is much appreciated.

I listen to rather a lot, but mainly via the iPlayer 'Listen Again' facility where I can skip much of the intros, etc., when I so desire.

[salymap]

There seems to be an awful amount of unnecessary envy on these boards recently. I passed the eleven plus but failed the medical and therefore did not become one of the four or five scholarship girls that year,1940/1 The same thing happened to another board member some years later but she got a second chance. I was not offered that and continued at the local school until I was about sixteen. The fact that it was in the middle of WW2 made a difference; staying alive was the main thing.
My mother took education seriously and kept an eye on my progress and I eventually found work behind the scenes in classical music, where no-one asked for details of my education as far as I can remember. Perhaps it was a good start for me as I don't feel particularly inferior to my cousins who went to Sherborne School or superior to anyone. At eleven I wanted to be a vet but, looking back, I think I had a lot more fun with the life I had.

[Anna]

Universities like Oxford, Cambridge, Durham, Edinburgh and others of long standing did not (and do not) accept "wannabees" in any subject. They only consider applicants will real promise; with "A" or "A+"passes at A level, in subjects where the award of a degree means something other than enhancing a League Table.

Oh Dear. I was going to contribute to this thread but it has moved on and I feel ashamed that the only Unis my family can offer are: LSE, Warwick, Lancaster and Imperial College, all third rate .... But, Goodness Me, what a load of intellectual snobbery abounds on these boards.

To get back the original question: What I hate is the Cult of the Sleb. Big Brother, Sleb Big Brother, Only Way is Essex and all those programmes which encourage the intellectually challanged to behave in an outrageous fashion for their 15 minutes of fame and the possible chance to sleep with a footballer or Kerry Katona.
Parents who use tv as a babysitter and who sanction eating on laps in front of the tv.
The right-hand column of The Mail Online.
Junk Food and the loss of culinary skills. Junk Mail delivered by the postman.
The X-Factor and X-Box and violent video games
Automated telephone calls saying I have been mis-sold PPI.
Intellectual snobs.
George Osborne and his unreal grasp on reality.
"One Nation" Labour as personified by Ed's geeky schoolboy speech when I cannot forgive "Nu-Labour"
I think that's enough for now!

[eighthobstruction]

I'd look after my teeth better....(and avoid the two patients who 'nutted' me in my front teeth)....


....agree totally about Ed M's speech....pass me the sick bag....

[John Shelton]

There seems to be an awful amount of unnecessary envy on these boards recently.

? If I can now remember I disagreed with a post wishing to wind the clock back to a time of more restricted access to university education, a post which Hornspieler endorsed. I don't think I've expressed envy of anybody or anything - I do think there are serious institutional issues to do with access and a disproportionate intake of privately educated, higher income students at many Russell Group universities (including, as it happens, the one I attended as an undergraduate, as neither privately educated nor from a higher income family).

The commercialisation / instrumentalisation of education is a separate issue, and one I also feel strongly about (as I implied, the destruction of the extraordinary philosophy department at Middlesex University is, for me, one of the most egregious acts of intellectual barbarism in a barbarous time). But all I was attempting to do was establish whether the clock turners back had any especial familiarity with undergraduate teaching in UK universities in the present, other than the anecdotal. I'm not much the wiser.

To further clarify: in no sense do I think people who go to university or were university educated are more admirable than people who don't or weren't. Or likely to be more interesting, or more intelligent, or more humanly significant. People are generally more interesting and humanly significant than the pigeonholes others establish for them. Except in the instances when they aren't, of course.

[eighthobstruction]

I hate it when people hit the 'envy' button....

[salymap]

Hey, Hey I wasn't pointing a finger at you or anyone in particular. I may not have even read that post.

[eighthobstruction]

We've given you too easy a ride Salymap....thought I'd just rattle your cage for once xxx

[salymap]

We've given you too easy a ride Salymap....thought I'd just rattle your cage for once xxx

Easy ?? Well I wouldn't like it any harder, I would fall apart at eighty two and a half [next week]

[John Shelton]

I may not have even read that post.

Story of my life.

[MrGongGong]

There are nearly 200 students in Bournemouth University ("Uni" to them) who are taking Media Studies as their Degree Course.
What chance have they of using that so-called degree to gain employment in the real world?

A waste of their time and the taxpayers' money.

HS

So I guess using the same "logic" then we should campaign for the closure of all music colleges
after all there are more than enough flautists in the "real world" () so why do we bother to train any more ?

Media Studies is always a convenient and easy target ...............

so how about Mediaeval History, Philosophy, Music, Art History, History, Theoretical Physics ???

University is not job training ..............

[anotherbob]

That first sentence may be true of some who were "born with silver spoons in their mouths" but I would suggest that the majority of "Oxbridge" graduates make a vast contribution to this country's prosperity and welfare, for the ultimate benefit of all its citizens

HS

I haven't made myself clear; or maybe more is being read into what I wrote than was meant. I don't believe I suggested that "oxbridge" graduates didn't contribute to "this country's prosperity and welfare".
As far as children with silver spoons in their mouths are concerned we didn't get many of them where I taught. Most of them were whisked away to the local "prep" schools. Their parents clearly regarded our schools as inadequate, or could it be they didn't want their children mixing with the plebs.

[PhilipT]

So I guess using the same "logic" then we should campaign for the closure of all music colleges
after all there are more than enough flautists in the "real world" () so why do we bother to train any more ?

Media Studies is always a convenient and easy target ...............

so how about Mediaeval History, Philosophy, Music, Art History, History, Theoretical Physics ???

University is not job training ..............

The criticism of Media Studies and the like is a little more subtle than you portray it. University certainly isn't, or shouldn't be, job training - medical schools, law schools and music conservatoires partially excepted - but the strength of the traditional subjects is that they are good vehicles for students to learn how to think - how to marshal complex and sometimes conflicting masses of facts and produce a coherent argument (I'd take History as an example from your list), how to think logically (Philosophy), and how to solve truly complex problems (Theoretical Physics). Media Studies is more like stamp collecting: "Here's an example of this, here's an example of that, ..". In the words of B.F.Skinner, "Education is what remains when what was learned has been forgotten." Once a Media Studies student has forgotten what he learned, what remains?

In my case, I have a degree in Physics, and I've been a computer programmer all my working life. I certainly once knew and understood and could solve problems in the Debye theory of specific heat capacity of solids, I've certainly forgotten it now, and I've never needed it in my work, but the ability to solve truly complex problems my studies gave me has never left me, and I use that every day.