Sometimes I wish I could go back in time, not even particularly that far back, to compare what attending University looked like, in comparison to what it is today.
I am the first one to admit, I have had nil interest in University life in the three years I have been a student. Socialist Alliance rallies, music festivals with deafening music and drinking to the point of spewing down a college corridor whilst partly naked and sporting a G-string on my head never rated highly. What could possibly be enjoyable about drinking on a couch at the Uni Bar, where all sorts of unsavoury body fluids could be easily identified by a blue light?
No, I’m just talking about the basic, boring actual content and quality of what is being taught and discussed in lecture theatres and tutorial rooms around the country.
Perhaps I had a completely romanticised view of what a tertiary education would be like, but I for one, cannot help but feel like a part of a giant corporate money making machine, whose primary objective is to ‘churn us through,’ rather than teach us how to think and encourage personal growth.
The course I am enrolled in was offered for the very firs time the year I began University. Instead of completing an arts degree then another degree or masters in the discipline of Social Work, I will graduate with a Bachelor and Masters all within 4 years and without actually having to really earn a place in my final year which I am set to embark on in a few months time.
As much as the title of my degree and masters will probably look quite nice on my resume, I cannot help but feel as though we are cheapening the meaning of a Masters and that any future employers expectations of me maybe far too high. More importantly, I cannot help but feel I am a little sheep being churned through a system. ‘Bums on seats’ is how I see it.
The delivery of much of the program is mechanical and doesn’t teach people to think critically and analytically and also contains (at least to this point) zero in the way of politics and advocacy, which I would argue are very important components to the Social Work profession. I see many young, compliant people undertaking my course and this worries me.
After recently attending a number of seminars at a rural campus of my University whilst completing a Field Placement in that same town, I was inspired to hear lecturers actually discussing the importance of advocating for political change in the region as a major component to Social Work. Three years of university in Melbourne and political advocacy had never been mentioned? Strange.
With one year of University to go, I am finding the mechanics and conservatism of University quite stifling and wonder what the experience of other disciplines even generalist degrees like Arts must be like? What sorts of Human Services employment will those who do not think analytically or critically end up in? I worry that the compliance taught by University will set many of my fellow students up for a career of compliance whereby systems (particularly government funded systems) will never change thereby letting down our clients- some of the most vulnerable people in our society.
Although I have no desire to revert back to the 60’s and smoke giant joints on the University grasslands whilst burning my non-existent bra, I really hope that our Universities can somehow balance the need to be viable businesses and still somehow teach students how to think and not what to think, once more.
