Academic Elitism

Anyone who frequents “The Student Room” will know that London Metropolitan University is a taboo subject. It just isn’t spoken about – and the moment anyone dares to bring it up, the angry mob come out with their flaming torches, determined to tell everyone that a degree from London Met will kill your family and banish you to the deepest, darkest, fiery pits of hell for all eternity.

The sad thing? I wish I was overreacting.

The way I see it, a university is a university. You’ve got ones that are prestigious – Oxford, Cambridge and the like – and ones which don’t carry the same amount of international prestige. That’s fine by me. If your choice of uni is based on the fact that when you tell people where you study, they’ll say “Oooh, you must be brainy!”, you need to re-evaluate your reasons for going to university. Personally, I don’t care if I go to Oxford University or London Met, as long as I’m studying a subject that interests me and having the full university experience.

Yes, London Met has very low entry requirements – but why is that such a bad thing? It gives people the opportunity to go to a university where they will study at a level that is right for them, because a Maths applicant for example may love Maths and have a real interest in it, but for whatever reason, can only attain a C. Having a university like London Met gives people like this the opportunity to study the subject they enjoy at a level that is right for them.

“But if they can’t get better marks, they shouldn’t go to uni!”, I hear you cry. Alright then. Where do they go instead? What do they do? Get a job? Where exactly are these jobs? Alright then, they should go on benefits? But that will be nigh-on impossible with the current cuts being made in the benefit system, and they’d only be known as “dole scum” anyway. So, they should live with their parents and do nothing? So how do their parents afford to keep an adult at home who can’t pay anything towards their own upkeep. Simple, I hear you say. They stay working for longer and don’t retire until later. Ah, but this only perpetuates the fact that there will be even fewer jobs for young people who apparently “shouldn’t” be going to university, because there’ll be more elderly people working later into their lives to try and pay for the upkeep of their children! And the vicious circle continues to spin.

Universities like London Met have their place – and, contrary to popular belief, that place isn’t “being inferior to the likes of Oxbridge”. Universities like London Met are, I’m willing to say, helping to keep this country afloat. People are paying £9,000 a year to study there – a steep figure, but they’re willing to pay it. For that £9,000 (and other costs on top of that), they are living independently for most of the year. They are gaining vital life experience of shopping for themselves. And, they are gaining a degree that, however inferior the elitist snobs might like to say it is, will give them a much better chance of getting a job – admittedly, still not great, but not even an Oxbridge degree has “great” job prospects these days – than if they lie around in their house for three years, doing nothing and destined to go nowhere.

If you’re considering London Met or another university lower down the league table, don’t let elitism sway your decision. If you have a passion for a subject, but it isn’t offered at the higher-ranked universities, or you don’t feel you could keep up with the courses in higher-ranked unis, or meet their grade offers, don’t be put off from studying it by people who are determined that any degree coming from a university lower in the league table than their own is worthless, because they’re not going to be spending three years there. The most important person is you, and what you want to study, and what you feel capable of, and above all, where you want to go.

Happy Queenaversary!

I know the Jubilee isn’t for a couple of weeks but I’ll probably be flat out revising or flat out dead from too much revision by then, so I’ll post about it now. I would consider myself a Royalist – I mean, I don’t wear every single piece of clothing with union colours draped across it, and I don’t have a poster of the Queen on my bedroom wall or anything, but I like the Royal Family, and I like the idea of having them still. The tourism they bring is great, the gates outside Buckingham Palace are always awash with people taking pictures, imitating the guards and buying every piece of queen/Britain-related memorabilia they can from the stalls set up nearby. Yes, the Royal Family cost us, but it’s not like they don’t bring any money to us whatsoever.

One of the main things foreigners associate with Britain is the queen. Little girls want to be princesses like Kate Middleton when they grow up, Princes William and Harry are inspirations to young men with their bravery in their roles in the Armed Forces and they are very hard working. Even the Queen, who is what, 86? carries out royal duties like there’s no tomorrow, fitting as much as she can into every trip and every visit. Plus, the idea of President Cameron is too frightening for words.

It’s a tradition thing – Britain has had a monarch for centuries (barring Oliver Cromwell’s failed attempt to stop that), and we’ve overcome all the troubles we’ve faced. Don’t forget – when Oliver Cromwell took over, he banned Christmas and fun. We don’t want to risk that happening again! In all seriousness, though, I don’t understand the arguments where people say they family should be stripped of all their wealth. Why? Most of them do work hard, with royal arrangements and their roles in the armed services, as well as the work many of them do as patrons of charities.

So I, for one, am happy we have had a queen for the past 60 years, and wish her many more years. Life would be boring without a queen whose house is enough to draw people from all corners of the world, a prince consort whose jokes split the public opinion (half shaking their heads in exasperation and half rolling with laughter) and a royal family who, whatever you think of them, it cannot be denied that they are quintessentially British.