According to BBC News Online, this 'institution' has a drop out rate of 11% for the academic year 2001-02. The justification for this shockingly low figure is the classic Paxman motto: "I've started so I'll finish". Well, what have the non-drop-outs started? A programme of study that, if it was anything like my first year, is intellectually unstimulating, psychologically draining (though not in any positive sense of the word) and about as useful as a toilet seat covered in anthrax spores. (That comparison may have been a little harsh - at least anthrax is mildly amusing to those versed in the darker side of humour).
My course of 'study' (Photography and Video) was to the Humboldtian ideal as Mohammed Atta was to the New York skyline. It consisted of producing consistently awful work (and I speak only for myself - my work was thoroughly appalling), getting marked over the top for it, all the while sitting through lectures which talked monotonously about the bleeding obvious to an audience of the bloody uninterested. The lecturers managed to talk down and over the heads of the students simultaneously.
It has often been joked that lectures are the period where the content of the lecturers notes are transferred verbally to the students notes without going through the minds of either. This was true in as much as there was such material to be transferred. At one point, and I did not think of this at the time, we set the world on fire, dunking Aristotle's ideas through the philosophical cold wash. Oh, no, wait, we were discussing David Beckham in a seminar class. The pity.
The library was the high point, and that is saying quite something. Once you step out of the library, you are guaranteed that everything will be worse. The lectures, the administration (I, or rather, my mother, received a hilarious - in the context - mass mailing from DMU's admin people about two weeks ago. Oh, how glossy pictures look silly once the Emporer's nudity has been revealed!), the 'atmosphere' (yes, I know, I'm supposed to be a logician...), the subject matter. Like many modern universities, the students didn't want to be there, the lecturers wanted to be somewhere else (I don't blame them) and the desire to set light to something was rather strong. (Alas, the laws on criminal damage, of which I am something of a homegrown expert, pre-emptively closed that route of exploration, but it was explored very thoroughly on a theoretical basis).
My first year of university, at the exquisite DeMontfort University (of which, the architectural feats are as follows: a really cool paternoster life in the art department and a student union building that has all the appeal of a railway station coffee shop - partly due to the fact that the businesses operating inside the student union building are the same as the ones you find on railway platforms), has left me with a deep sense of loathing at the world. The high point* of my initial foray in to academia was rumpled up inside my own bedclothes reading, but not quite understanding, Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil at around 3am with nothing but the sight of police sirens to comfort me.
Of course, I am exaggerating. Such is my job. To step back in to the realm of the rational - it is not all as bad as I say. Of course, I have to grapple mentally for about five or ten minutes before I can find something good about it. The thought process goes something like this: "Hmm. I wonder. There must be something good. I don't know. I'll have to think about this. Hmm. Mmm. Come on mind. Think. Oooh, biscuits. No, no, focus. Ah, that was good. Oh, no, wait. The mild benefits offered to the world by orange flavoured chocolate has nothing to do with it. Okay, focus. There's something. I know there's something. Oh, bugger this. I'm off to watch Dale Winton's The Other Half on repeat." And I would. Or perhaps I didn't. But if I did, I could guarantee you, that there would be lots more to feast my mind upon than what was provided in my first year of buggering around in Leicester.
It is not too hard to put this verdict across, and I feel no moral qualms about doing so, and I will justify myself in a short while. This kind of university contains just about everything I dislike in academia, and has nothing of the good quality. I was shortchanged by a thousand odd quid on tuition, when totted up, generously, I got about fifty quids worth out of it. At most. If you are considering sending yourself off to this institution, I would strongly avoid doing so. It was a waste of time, a waste of money and a mind-sapping pox to boot.
Moral justifications, you say? Well, where do I start? First of all, it is morally justified to use these nuclear strength levels of hyperbole if by writing this I prevent just one person from excreting away a year in service of what is essentially a non-education, or even an anti-education - an experience where you come out with less knowledge than you had when you went in. There could be the next Einstein out there, just waiting for the spirit to be crushed by an ex-polytechnic. Second, it is justified, because it is, to the best of my knowledge, true. It is crap. My annus horribilus was a total waste of time. And, yes, if I did have a time machine I would warp back and tell myself to spend the year flipping burgers instead. Third, it is morally right to tell the truth, however nasty the short term effects.** It may not be very nice to call bull on things, but it is better to get the short pain involved in realising the problem, rather than living under the delusion that an ex-polytechnic education is worth anything at all. It's not. It is far better to shatter the illusion, cut the problem off at it's source (the willingness of students and their parents to hand over big bucks to the universities for bad rubbish) and move on. When a degree becomes worthless, it is most definitely a worthy cause to warn those about to jump in to such folly.
This university (again, watch the terminology - personally I prefer "trumped up ex-polytechnic" myself) is also one of the few universities in Britain not to reveal their recent drop out rates. For good reason, methinks.
UPDATE / POSTSCRIPT * Some commenters elsewhere have pointed out that police sirens and Nietzsche are hardly the worst thing that can happen. Exactly. That's why I said "high point". The low points were the occasional violent attacks that took place in close proximity to the university, and on one occasion a murder. That combined with shelling out a couple of thousands of pounds to get a non-education.
** Okay, not necessarily. It wouldn't be morally right to tell the truth that you've got some Jews hiding in your loft if a Nazi officer was asking. But that is rather different from this instance. I may offend some people, but I think the biggest offence is the fact that the government, in co-operation with others, have devalued the essentail point of a degree. Why should it be that an ex-polytechnic can get away with handing out degrees to anyone who can write a cheque and sleep for a year or so, while old fashioned universities have to conform to much higher standards of teaching? This is an issue that student unions should be focusing on and campaigning about. There's no point worrying about fees if what you actually get from those fees is getting worse and worse.
I would also amend the following details: one report has pegged the first-year drop out rate at 15% and the completion rate at 49%. This 49% completion rate is the lowest in the country. Think about that: 1 in 2 people who start a course at DMU will not finish it. And the rest come out with a degree that's worth even less. (Source: Potter Guides)
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Reasonable
Student Union
Reasonable
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Acceptable
Cost of Living
Expensive
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