"Back the arts"
I've tried in these columns to be a little bit philosophical, the point being to navel-gaze on my own postgraduate experiences at UC and try to translate that into something useful for other postgrads (current or future). But at the end of the day, I'm still just a scientist; my synapses fire in different ways to an engineer, or a lawyer, or even an arts student. And that's why it's short-sighted and daft of the University to continually threaten the Arts department with cuts.
A few nights ago I was Facebook chatting with a friend, and I tried to explain to him how I'd been feeling about my thesis. He deciphered my mangled science talk, disappeared for a minute and came back with a link to an Edgar Allan Poe essay ('The Imp of the Perverse', if you're playing along at home). It's typical of the rapidly narrowing nature of study; the further you get along, the more you know about less. We need each other to fill in the gaps in our knowledge, and between us we make something bigger than the sum of its parts. Just like Voltron. I wouldn't want to be in a university that only offered law, science and engineering. It means undervaluing diversity, and in my own field of study, without diversity there can be no evolution.
I guess it's symptomatic of university life that present events bring out that ugly underbelly of vitriol between departments. There's a difference between friendly ribbing and trolling. You're so brave to go on Facebook and tell people their degrees are worth nothing, but be warned your department might be next. First they came for the Arts students, and I said nothing because I wasn't an Arts student...
Secretly, I think there's one upside to the ongoing threat towards Arts students. Those unfortunate enough to have been around for both rounds of change proposal have learnt hard truths about disposability. And they've learned to fight back. Should my department be next on the cutting block, I'd definitely want those hardened Arts students to advise me. So I've got their back. Talk about specialising all you like, but we all know this is the first step in the university recouping lost financial input. Way to thank students for sticking around after a shitty couple of years in Christchurch.
A few nights ago I was Facebook chatting with a friend, and I tried to explain to him how I'd been feeling about my thesis. He deciphered my mangled science talk, disappeared for a minute and came back with a link to an Edgar Allan Poe essay ('The Imp of the Perverse', if you're playing along at home). It's typical of the rapidly narrowing nature of study; the further you get along, the more you know about less. We need each other to fill in the gaps in our knowledge, and between us we make something bigger than the sum of its parts. Just like Voltron. I wouldn't want to be in a university that only offered law, science and engineering. It means undervaluing diversity, and in my own field of study, without diversity there can be no evolution.
I guess it's symptomatic of university life that present events bring out that ugly underbelly of vitriol between departments. There's a difference between friendly ribbing and trolling. You're so brave to go on Facebook and tell people their degrees are worth nothing, but be warned your department might be next. First they came for the Arts students, and I said nothing because I wasn't an Arts student...
Secretly, I think there's one upside to the ongoing threat towards Arts students. Those unfortunate enough to have been around for both rounds of change proposal have learnt hard truths about disposability. And they've learned to fight back. Should my department be next on the cutting block, I'd definitely want those hardened Arts students to advise me. So I've got their back. Talk about specialising all you like, but we all know this is the first step in the university recouping lost financial input. Way to thank students for sticking around after a shitty couple of years in Christchurch.
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