Mr F. said:
The only thing I dont like about Lancaster right now is how apolitical their union seems to be. The brochure I was given was all about starting up a business and stuff like that, not enough about giving the Tories what for and yelling very loudly about the rise in student fees. Read it at my open day just before chatting to the man I later found out was head of department. I jokily said that I would get them marching within a year, he encouraged me to do so.
You'll hear a lot more about starting your own business when you get to Lancs, they advertised for it a lot last year to the point i found it a bit irksome. I suspect it's a government backed scheme to try and get more students to make their own jobs rather than apply for others in a bid to keep graduate unemployment figures down or something. Whilst i think universities should fully support would-be entrepreneurs, i think they are trying a bit too hard. You have to be off a certain character and disposition to be an entrepreneur, and i don't feel it's something you can bring out of everyone like you can, say, confidence or creativity. In fact, a lot of entrepreneurs don't go to university or drop out because they are heavily business minded rather than academically minded- look at Richard Branson for instance. So really, if it is a government backed scheme, they're looking in the wrong place.
Anyway, rant over, back to the topic:
Yeah, I saw some of the Larpers on my open day. It is the sort of stuff I like. Walk up a hill and beat the crap out of each other with foam weaponry? What is NOT to love! I didn't know there was a historical re-enactment society, that does sound interesting. Although I wonder if they are more medieval rather than 17th century, which is much more my thang.
The re-enactment dudes seem to be medieval and not 17th century, at least that's how they appeared when i briefly glanced at their table when i was working at Freshers Fair last year. They had a good collection of shields swords and spears. It would be nice if they did both medieval and civil war though- I would love to try shooting a musket.
Fun Fact: They have a Venetian cannon in the History Department. Decades ago, in the days before health and safety, a lecturer once told me that they used to fire it outside the vice-Chancellors office to annoy him.
And politics is most certainly my thing. My spare time is consumed by rabidly reading everything from the Daily Mail (Chips give you Cancer! Or was that the express? It was this week anyway) to the Guardian, with light spatterings of Private Eye and blogs. Again, double cheers for pointing me towards SCAN, I will most certainly look it up.
As for writing for a censored paper? It was rather... Interesting. An intriguing intellectual experience. The best example I can come up with is my coverage of the Tuition Fees/Welfare Cuts protests outside Senate House in Cambs. Most of my article remained in tact, the only bits that were removed were things like a glass bottle being thrown at the police, the fact that they were pushed up against a wall and outnumbered to the tune of 50 to 1 prior to drawing batons. Strangely they did leave my coverage of a 15 year old girl getting hit so hard she could not walk.
Writing for that paper, essentially writing Lefty propaganda (Every article had to end with how the problem could be solved by Socialist government or why the good thing was due to the Socialist movement) is what got me interested in Media and Cultural studies though. So it was not purely an intellectual exercise.
I end up reading a lot of the Daily Mail because my mother keeps buying it, and it makes me rage as well, although that's mainly on it's reporting of European politics. I imagine there certainly will be similarities between how the Mail is edited and how your young socialist newspaper was edited. You could say that there are lies, damn lies and then newspapers. I realise this is miles off, but if media bias interests you could probably do your dissertation on the subject.
Megalodon said:
Nickolai77 said:
Well I can't say anything about how hard your particular course is, but on the socialising side, as long as you care enough and organise your time there should be enough time for both old and new friends. I started my MSc in Molecular Genetics and Diagnostics at Nottingham this week, so my situation isn't too different.
Yeah i know i'm going to have to be super-organised- fortunately i regard myself as being pretty damn organised already so hopefully that virtue will pay off. Cheers for the thoughts.
Whelp, I am offski in less than 40 minutes. Packing this thing up, just thought I would get one last post in before the laptop is packed and I can have some time to chill out. Its been all go since 6am, trying to pack everything I need for university on my lonesome has been rather difficult. Resorted to bin-bags full of crap that I will tie to myself. Or something.
I have not been giving much thought to my dissertation yet. Part of me would like to try and do something exploring the links between computer games and violence, part of me wants to do something on media ethics and a large part of me wants to try and explore the potential reasons behind a higher instance of rioting occuring under Tory led governments rather than Labour.
As for the similarities between the Mail and the YS? I hate to admit it, but you are right. Both are heavily edited to make sure they fit with the view of the editors in chief. I ended up leaving the party after finding out that the official party line was "Gadaffi is a good man" based purely on the fact that he was nominally a socialist revolutionary. But I admit that both serve their place.
At least the YS reports that one third of Greeks have now been pushed below the poverty line.
