Reflections… or lack thereof

They say (they being the ultimate in non-specific generalisations) that the reason vampires don’t have a reflection in the mirror is because they don’t have a soul. That’s an interesting opening sentence for this blog. It turns out Keira Knightley agrees with the “Australian Aborigines” who believe that every photo steals a portion of your soul (sucks to be wearing red at the Oscars then). (And now for the “reveal” when it comes to this somewhat bizarre segue) As a result of some three years spent as a law student I estimate that I too have lost a significant portion of my soul. I was talking to my friend Ben this afternoon – who has just started doing law post-grad – about why I dropped law and decided to turn my rant into this post.
I didn’t like the smug superiority that radiated from the inevitably private school educated pretty boys with their deck shoes and polo shirts – or the “look at me” hairstyles with sticking up fringes invariably worn by single-sex-school-educated girls who carried all their books around in those rectangular shopping bags from Sportsgirl or whatever chain it is they liked to buy their ridiculously undersized shorts from.

Mature aged students though – the ones who through lack of better judgement thought that asking pointless hypothetical questions, that have no real application in the world they’re so much more familiar with than the run-of-the-mill high school graduate, were actually improving the quality of the education of the younger “peers” who were just so lucky to have the benefit of their company in class – they are the worst kind of animal. Their existence is so pointless and vacuous that one wonders why they didn’t stick with whatever mediocre career path they were no doubt traversing when they decided “a law degree will no doubt aid my slowing ascent up the corporate ladder and keep the yapping jaws of the generation below me who already boast multiple paper qualifications thanks to the somewhat new university policy of maximising revenue through double degrees away from my heels for just that little bit longer…

And that ladies and gentlemen, along with the fact that I wanted to salvage part of my soul, is why I dropped law – and also why I’m glad I don’t have to sit through a lecture with mature aged students who are being “retrained” or “reeducated” or “reskilled” on the company credit card. I’m also startled by the realisation that my peers (ala Ben) are now exactly that type of person.

Comments

Leah Maria says:

I think there can be an argument for mature aged students. There definitely was around 15 years ago, when the law was changed from demanding a Dip. Ed for teachers to a B. Ed- meaning all teachers had to go back to uni to do the extra year to make up the Bachelor as opposed to the Diploma they had previously.

These days I think it’s understandable if someone is changing careers. Say you’ve been a office chick for 10 years and decide you want to be a nurse, you have to go to uni for that. Or say you simply took a gap year or two, that makes you a mature aged student too. Greg’s a “mature age” student. (Note the “mature age”, it doesn’t actually specify “mature”.)

But if it’s someone continuing in the same career and there isn’t any major reason why they have to do the uni course, then I agree, it can be pretty ridiculous.

Then again there are also retired seniors who have nothing much to do with their spare time, have some money to burn, so figure why not take a few uni classes? If it’s interesting for them and gives them something to do, I’m all for it.

Tim Creagh says:

You have to admit, though, that there’s something about being a mature age student that makes some of them (to be charitable!) ask the most stupid, irrelevant and pointless questions that you could imagine possible… Something that certainly isn’t unique to Law!

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Robyn says:

Nath,
You really need to update your blog. I think I must be the only one still checking it.

Robyn says:

It appears that you don’t even check your blog anymore…

Leah Maria says:

nope, there’s more than just robyn checking on here!

Tim says:

and me

Mark says:

Jealousy is a curse…

You’ll be there soon enough, though probably not for climbing the corporate ladder.

Joel says:

It really is a testament to how sad my life is that, after 3 months of not posting, I still check this blog.

Robyn says:

Wow. It’s been 101 days since your last post… That’s almost impressive.