Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER.
So, I have been a university student for 20 years now. Not what I intended, or wanted. What I wanted was a new job. You know, like universities promise in their advertising. One that was a bit more substantial than the job my parents had planned out for me from childhood. And I wanted to be finished before I was 40. Ha. I’m 52 now and I am reaching, desperately, for the light at the end of the tunnel.
What had my parents planned for me? My parents wanted me to be a little music teacher – yes, a ‘little’ music teacher. A little music teacher is a music teacher who works from home. This would be with their grandchildren running around my legs, of course, primed and ready to take care of their every whim in their dotage. And so I played along, all the while planning how to make my escape.
I knew from an early age I would not be going to university after high school. My family didn’t and doesn’t do education. I am the first person in my family to finish high school, let alone attempt higher education. This includes uncles, aunts, and cousins. I wish I could tell you my family was full of happy diamonds in the rough. Truth is it is full of very unhappy people, some in prison, many on pensions, who like to tear each other apart at every opportunity. And I remain the black sheep.
Where did my hapless university career start? When I was 34, I auditioned and was accepted to study a bridging program in classical piano. I had planned this since I was 12. I had longed to play the piano since I was 3 or so. One of my earliest memories is being threatened by the kindergarten teacher that if I did not stop touching the piano I would not be allowed to go swimming with the rest of the class in the harbour – and then having to watch my peer’s bathing capped heads bobbling in the water from a seat on the shore. I loved swimming, but I loved that siren, the piano, more. But, as everyone knows, my father told me, classical music is for snobs and since he did not want me to be a snob I would not study piano. Naturally, since my parents did not approve, I was obsessed.
I carried my obsession for thirty-odd years. Now, to say my father became angry when I told the parental unit I had been accepted into the local conservatorium studying a bridging program as a classical piano major 31 years later would be an understatement. Apoplectic, livid, enraged – he told me if he had known I would eventually pursue this artsy fartsy crap, he would have dragged me out of school when I was 15 and made me get a real job. He reminded me they told me if I went to uni, they would never talk to me again, and they meant it. Yeah? Three guesses why I haven’t told you before this, dad – and the first two are duds. They meant it and I knew they meant it. And except for a handful of family meetings where I was told what a major, major disappointment I was and how I had driven my mother to heavy doses of mogodon and other prescription drugs, that was it.
My friends laughingly call me a professional student. They, too, have never been to university. If they had they would know nothing could be further from the truth. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, the idea of a professional student is a hangover from the era of free education where students could drift from one degree to another without the noose of HECS or HELP or any other government imposed fee scheme leaving them with tens of thousands of dollars of debt. There is nothing professional about my time at university. There has also been nothing aimless, just frustration.
Seeing as I have been at uni for 20 years now, you’re probably guessing my bridging year in classical music did not go to plan and you would be right, but that is a long story for another day. That along with all of the other times I have managed to get into trouble in higher education. These are many and they are varied and just one would be enough to turn any sensible person away, but not me. I thought all these years what was happening was my fault. If I just worked harder, if I was just smarter, if I studied more, then everything would be alright.
Then, three years ago, I was talking with an independent academic advisor at the university about my PhD woes and I had an epiphany. This ‘independent’ person was in the middle of telling me there must be something wrong with me and that I must do as I was told. And right there, at the age of 49 I realised it wasn’t me – it was them. I had heard this before. What a load of crap. The constant disapproval, the holding at arm’s length – university had become my surrogate parent.
Now at the 20-year mark, I am at the brink of submitting my PhD thesis. Problem is, I don’t see any reason to submit it. It’s not that I don’t love my research, I do, but there is absolutely no advantage to me in submitting. The university has shown me numerous ways they will crush my research and I am sure they will if I let them. I don’t know how I feel about this. I should feel angry, but I don’t. What I feel is indignant. Why should this institution receive $85K from the government and the even more important completion data after the rollicking they have given me? My research will always be mine and it will always be something I can be proud of. If I submit and they bury it, it’s gone – and why would I let them?
The meeting with the independent academic advisor not only opened my eyes, but pointed me to a completely different path. I had been feeling like a victim. What had happened? Two days after our regular meeting, my principal supervisor had sent me a ‘Dear Jo’ email. He had decided he didn’t want to supervise me anymore and I would have to leave. I then spent 10 months trying to find a solution. I went back and forth between my supervisor and the dean of research with no hope of resolution anywhere in sight.
It turns out supervisors are not allowed to just dump students over email, or any other way. It’s the law, apparently. If a supervisor cannot continue to supervise they must find a replacement suitable to both parties. University regulations state this and my supervisor had signed a contract to this affect. That they continued to ignore this and acted with impunity, encouraged me to dig my heels in. This, and 10 months of not being spoken to by anyone led me to the meeting with the independent academic advisor.
How a university professor can be independent advisor to students remains a mystery, but thankfully provided me with my lightbulb moment. After the meeting I sat back and thought about what I am really good at. All the advice from university, family, friends, and colleagues was I should just leave. It was really stressful and it was even more pointless. And then, there is was – my talent, my skill, my gift – what I am really good at – getting into trouble at university. According to cognitive psychology (and I have a degree in that) it takes 10 years to become an expert, so I am an expert in getting into trouble at university twice over and as George Gershwin said, they can’t take that away from me. They can’t take anything away from me unless I let them, and since I have learned to say no in a loud, clear voice, my days of waiting passively for approval that will never come are definitively and categorically over.
Why stay? There are advantages to remaining in the system. It turns out that if you hang around long enough, you can get yourself into all sorts of situations – sitting on boards with the deans, for one. And when your goal is to understand what is happening and why, and you keep your ear to the ground you learn a lot. My goal for a while has been to find out why, and I think I am getting a pretty good handle on it. This isn’t just my story – and it actually has barely scratched the surface. This happens more than you would think in many forms to many students, both domestic and international. Just what to do about it…..more trouble on the horizon, that’s for sure. And I don’t think I would want it any other way.