I decided to turn down my university place at 18, 2 weeks before I was due to start. I later decided I would like to prove to myself that I was up to a degree and enrolled in the OU, ironically to study biology, the same subject I was intending to study at 18. The course was great and fitted round my two youngish children. I was a rather ´mature’ student and I had studied nutrition and alternative health already. I realised that some of what I was being taught was not correct in the OU degree but I knew what the answers were ´supposed’ to be and just did what I needed to graduate. This is fine when having to state incorrectly that carbohydrates are essential for humans but I just don’t think I could comply now as I imagine I would have to accept that biological sex is fluid and that there are multiple genders among other things.
Thank goodness I finished studying when I did and that my 2 daughters finished their studies a good number of years ago.
Thank you for the comment Hilary. I think a lot of students take that same approach. They know what their lecturers want to hear and so they write in keeping with that to get a good grade. I have spoken to students who have done this.
I think conformity around certain ideas is, in a way, part and parcel of academic life. That it is through a minority willing to pushback against the stagnant consensus in pursuit of the truth that we overcome these moments.
I'm pleased to hear your daughters did not have to confront the madness and willful blindness happening on campus nowadays.
I decided to turn down my university place at 18, 2 weeks before I was due to start. I later decided I would like to prove to myself that I was up to a degree and enrolled in the OU, ironically to study biology, the same subject I was intending to study at 18. The course was great and fitted round my two youngish children. I was a rather ´mature’ student and I had studied nutrition and alternative health already. I realised that some of what I was being taught was not correct in the OU degree but I knew what the answers were ´supposed’ to be and just did what I needed to graduate. This is fine when having to state incorrectly that carbohydrates are essential for humans but I just don’t think I could comply now as I imagine I would have to accept that biological sex is fluid and that there are multiple genders among other things.
Thank goodness I finished studying when I did and that my 2 daughters finished their studies a good number of years ago.
Thank you for the comment Hilary. I think a lot of students take that same approach. They know what their lecturers want to hear and so they write in keeping with that to get a good grade. I have spoken to students who have done this.
I think conformity around certain ideas is, in a way, part and parcel of academic life. That it is through a minority willing to pushback against the stagnant consensus in pursuit of the truth that we overcome these moments.
I'm pleased to hear your daughters did not have to confront the madness and willful blindness happening on campus nowadays.