Owes $28,000+ in Debt.
Lives away from home.
Receives little financial support from family.
Works part time. (around 15 hours a week) often for minimum wage.
Doesn’t qualify for a student allowance.
The rich student:
Owes nothing in debt. Either their parents have paid their entire way through or they have a scholarship (often because their parents have paid for extra school lessons).
Either lives at home or away from home. Pays nothing in rent because parents cover it all.
Receives full financial support from family.
Doesn’t work part time. They can therefore spend more time on studies and do better.
Qualifiers for a student allowance because their families have creative accountants who tie all the money up in trusts, investments, and company expenses.
My situation:
32,000 in debt.
Lives away from home.
Receives no financial support from family.
Worked 20 hours a week while studying.
Did not qualify for a student allowance.
I read an interesting blog post today about supposed “healthy competition” between universities (see link above).
Now I want you to ponder this. Should universities be in competition with each other?
What marks the difference between “healthy” and “unhealthy” competition?
This is something that the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC) has been focusing on over the past few years and trying to stamp out. Universities and other tertiary providers should not be in competition with one and other but should rather be working together. At the end of the day cooperation benefits everyone far greater then competition.
Think about this. With cooperation in research people can move forward on ideas faster. How many different universities need to invent the wheel? Cooperation in research also allows for more open, honest and transparent findings and less allegations of faking results because rather then being the first to do something, as a team you are the best at doing it and therefore you have the best result. Competition does not drive improvements in research but rather forces researchers to work harder and rush things often making mistakes rather then actually doing something beneficial.
So how does this apply to undergraduate and postgraduate taught classes? Well the reality is this, in New Zealand you are forced to pay for your education. Therefore the education that you receive should be the highest possible quality education and you should get value for money. Money aka your fees should not be wasted on competition between universities such as advertising that trades off one university against another and neither should it be spent on anything other then the provision of your courses. Universities should not set up courses to compete with each other and steal students off one an other but should rather be introducing courses to meet the need of the market - something the TEC is trying to implement through its investment plans.
So is any form of competition healthy? No. Competition should not be permitted between universities. There are only 8 universities in New Zealand we are a small country and the majority of our funding to our universities comes from the government and at the end of the day they are all owned by the crown so in a round-a-bout way you only end up competing with yourself. Cooperation not Competition!
I am on cloud nine (to steal a commonly used quote from my GF).
I got informed today that for one of my papers last semester I scored 100%. In other words, 15/15 for Assignment One, 15/15 for Assignment Two, 70/70 for the Exam.
I am only the second person ever in the history of the paper to do this.
I am trying to complete my final assignment for this semester.
Normally it would be good to be working in silence and alone, but sometimes that aloneness can get to you. There is not anyone on MSN to chat to, and everyone is busy so no one wants to go out tonight, even though there is a good band playing at the University Bar.
And to make things even worse iTunes is pissing the shit out of me. I am trying to download some music in iTunes Plus format, however because it is new their servers are all overloaded. That is not the issue, the issue is despite my computer settings being set to stop applications stealing focus it still manages to every minute or so to say that the servers are overloaded, it is incredibly annoying, especially when you are trying to work!
In typing this out it has stolen focus at least twelve times. FIX IT APPLE!
I’m So Ronery
So ronery
So ronery and sadry aroneThere’s no one
Just me onry
Sitting on my rittle throne
I work rearry hard and make up great prans
But nobody ristens, no one understands
Seems like no one takes me serirousry
And so I’m ronery
A rittle ronery
Poor rittle me
There’s nobody
I can rerate to
Feel rike a bird in a cage
It’s kinda sihry
But not rearry
Because it’s fihring my body with rage
I’m the smartest most crever most physicarry fit
But nobody else seems to rearize it
When I change the world maybe they’ll notice me
But until then I’rr just be ronery
Rittle ronery, poor rittle me
