School's out...For ever

Yesterday, I signed off on what will almost certainly be the last academic thing that I do in my life. Most people walk away from school or college with a big smile on their face and I'm not saying that I'm unduly saddened to leave it all behind. It's just that I've been doing it for so long that it's kind of become a part of what I am, and letting go of a part of your identity is a different matter entirely. At the moment, I'm still an External Examiner for Huddersfield Uni, but yesterday was the last exam board that I need to attend. The report's written and emailed, hands have been shaken and students and lecturers congratulated or chastised accordingly. Job done. Now I'm left to reflect on the fact that it's been 26 years since I first walked into a university and now (apart from (hopefully) my kids' graduations) I have no real reason to go back through the doors of those cosy ivory towers and I think I'm going to miss it.

It seems like only yesterday that I was wandering round Oxford with Nick after an entrance interview, trying my best to have my socialist principles appalled by every hooray I met. Or going up north with Chris, when the snow made my train 3 hours late into Durham and I slid on my arse in my best suit and pitched up like a drowned rat. They still made me an offer though.

For the record, I've had the genuine pleasure of attending 5 universities. York, Lancaster, Durham, Hull and Huddersfield. In that order. I've finished triumphantly and barely, wasted my time and been wasted, packed it in and struggled on through undergraduate degrees, diplomas and certificates, masters, M Phils and PhDs. Tasted the chalk dust, man and boy, for 25 years. I've examined and been examined, all the vivas and dissertations, the essays and presentations, the notes cards and late nights have all been and gone. I've had papers published and experienced the arcane thrill of being made a Research Fellow; there's something fantastically old-school about being a 'fellow' of anything. I think it makes you think of 'for he's a jolly good, etc...' And now, like Mr. Chips, I can see the hundreds of faces file past me through the mist. Unlike Mr. Chips, most of those faces come with bad 80s hairdos and drug-addled and bloodshot eyes.

Looking back, what do I think? Was it all worth it? No-brainer. Of course it was. I wouldn't have missed any of it for a minute, even the crappy stuff. Because deep down, I have always believed that the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is an important and beautiful thing. Sitting around destroying your braincells with like-minded and interesting people is also an important and beautiful thing. All those who can, should. But they should have the chance to do it the way it was back in the day. Before all the fee-paying and the 'Mrs. Thatcher's-brave-new-world-self-development-for-money-and-career-status' rubbish that students have to put up with nowadays. I do like being around students, they're a breath of fresh air and a reminder of what it was like. Lynn can't stand them though and never could. She thinks they're all feckless and need a dose of work to sort them out. That reminds me. Alicia, have you tidied your room up yet?