A Long Time Coming

/ Dominic

As I now live with a terribly intellectual person in the form of MFTS my mind has turned back again to something that has nagged at me for 20+ years. And that is the fact that I didn’t go to university. I haven’t got a single set of groovy post salutation letters to my name. That saddens me. Really, the letters are everything 😉

At traditional time that everyone normal goes to uni to do a degree I was crippled by some heavy enough burdens.

To whit;

  • at 18 I was extremely fortunate insofar as I KNEW EVERYTHING. What could uni possibly teach a young and obviously gifted person like me? Strangely, as I get older I seem to know less and less. Most puzzling. MFTS manages to highlight this without ever trying to specifically do so.
  • I don’t think you could have met a less secure or emotionally mature individual if you’d run a specifically focussed and anthropologically guided investigation. I was so impressionable I’d be in jail by now, no doubt.

So what does a newly separated and shortly to be officially divorced 43y old male that is currently unemployed and flailing about for some direction in life do?  Thankfully I live in a country that despite all its niggles, faults and other things I’d change (the scandalous mixture of Church and State for starters) has this phenomenal institution for people like me. It’s called the Open University.

I think I’ll do a degree. Primarily this will be so I can learn to think in a structured way, make cohesive and less rambling arguments and learn the tools to methodically analyse and interpret information. It’ll take 6 years assuming I stick at it and is damn good value.

Watch for updates. I imagine that as the workload goes up they’ll become less frequent.

5 thoughts on “A Long Time Coming”

  1. There are plenty of institutions who can offer part time or distance study that will take less than six years. I did mine one day a week in class, three years. Degree & letters and I worked and raised a family alone, piece of cake 🙂

  3. I’ll add my 2p Dom. Why bother doing the muni thing at unless it’s for a really specific and a vocational degree allied to A JOB. I’d be more inclined to write whatever you fancied and hawk it around the publishers/net/blogosphere ad infinitim until someone bites. Having letters after your name is essentially meaningless unless you are a Prof. , Dr, or need a vocation eg engineering.

    Of course you can ignore all that and have a bloody good time meeting new people, making a whole pile of new contacts as well a pretending to learn the craft.

    Then get a Doctorate,

    🙂

    D

    • Muni thing is purely for my own edification – not about making myself more employable. It has nagged at me for years. Not the letters (Pah, really) but the discipline, structure and knowledge.

Comments are closed.