Monday, February 05, 2007

Wishing that you had a gun

If this University's student community is at all typical of UK undergraduates in general, it will only be a few years before the country grinds to a shuddering halt. (Unless, when they finally get their degrees, they also miraculously overnight achieve a semblance of articulacy, alertness and general intelligence.)

It's instructive but depressing to stand outside on campus while having a cigarette, hearing the 'conversations' that take place among the student body. The majority of male undergrads sound suspiciously like Beavis and Butthead, and communicate merely through a series of grunts and inane 'heh, heh, heh' sounds. The females invariably have adopted the question intonation style for every utterance, and break each sentence at least twice with the phatic 'It was just soooo, like...'
I am finding it more and more difficult not to scream, and may even consider stopping smoking so I don't have to hear their relentless idiocy. I stand there desperately puffing on my Regal, trying to banish all fantasies of mowing them all down with a Kalashnikov.

They also seem to have little or no spatial awareness. They stand around dumbly in groups, inevitably blocking entrances and the length and breadth of corridors, completely unaware of people trying to get past. Desperate for something to shift them, I was delighted to find a cattle prod on eBay for $41. I hope it's not delayed by customs.

Basic literacy is absent. Recently we attempted to get them to register for classes via a web form. It was extremely simple, but being a belt and braces kinda gal, I thought it'd be safer to give some basic instructions, just incase. The instructions were in language which I'd estimate someone with a reading age of 8 could easily comprehend. O dear. Judging by the registration data which came through, a large percentage of these 1st and 2nd year undergraduates don't seem to have the reading abilities of a 5 year old. One of the lecturers confirmed this fact, having been the unfortunate recipient of a number of e-mails from members of his class. Those that weren't written completely in txtspk were so appallingly illiterate, he was unable to decipher exactly what it was they were asking about.

In a few years time, they will be out in the world looking for graduate jobs. Snort. It's not surprising the country's in such a mess.

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