It’s that time of year again – exam results are out and thousands of young folk are either jumping for joy or have had tears of disappointment and are then furiously trying to work out what to do next.  I only know one lucky stick who is about to start the journey to University – so congratulations to Ms Sophie Briggs (who we saw at the weekend) who will be going off to her chosen University.  Sophie’s experience of the exam results / ‘have I got into my chosen Uni?’ day(s) was very different to mine…

  • She logged into a website (UCAS) and was able to see if she had got into her chosen university:
  • Answer ‘yes’
  • She then trundled off to her (now former) educational establishment to get her grades (which were by the by as she was already in to chosen establishment)
  • She was able to send a multiple recipient text / twitter / instant message to her posse to let them know
  • People got to hug and kiss / hug and cry / hug and get away from the annoying successful ones as quickly as possible
  • Get down the pub via a co-ordinated mobile phone around
  • Deal with the hangover

How the world has changed…

When I got the results of those per-Uni exams (circa 1990) we had to:

  • Dash off to our educational establishment to get our grades
  • Get through the nightmare of people hugging and kissing / hugging and crying / hugging and then trying to get away from the annoying successful ones as quickly as possible by…
  • Get down the pub
  • Then overcome the fretting if our grades didn’t quite match-up to your preferred university’s requirements (mine fell a bit short) while continuing to avoid the folk that met the mark
  • We then had to…
  • Deal with the hangover
  • Spend two days waiting before calling our preferred University to see if we had got on (I did – University of Bath said ‘yes’ – thank goodness otherwise Hena, Charlotte, Rhian-Mari (RM), and Ed would not be my Uni friends and now permanent fixtures in my life – the thought of life without them makes me shudder)
  • You then spent days on the family home phone calling all your friend’s mums (your friends were out) and leaving messages that ‘all good – I got into Bath’

So… the Internet has made that little window in our lives more streamlined and efficient.  There is still the drama though (and the hangover) which is fabulous.

Now very few of my friends (I don’t think anyone did but my memory isn’t what it was!!!) had to go through the ‘clearing’ process which is the mad panic to secure your place.  Now according to those that know these things this year is a difficult one.  Demand here in the UK is much higher than usual – five people for every spare place rather than the usual average of two.

Now I am not sure of the 2009 approach to clearing – but on face value it seems to be the same as circa 1990.  The lists of spare places are published in the weekend newspapers in supplements and those who need to get on the old fashioned blower.

This post was prompted by both catching up with Sophie and also flicking through The Independent on Sunday UCAS university clearing supplement.  There seem to be a load of great courses up for grabs and I am sure the phone lines that people have to call are burning hot.

I haven’t looked at university courses since pre-circa 1990 so I was amused, amazed and at points jealous of the type of courses that the young folk of the UK might get to study – times have changed my friends (A LOT).  Now I studied good old fashioned Biology (and I absolutely LOVED IT) and my Chad studied French and Italian.  My core gang also studied French and Italian plus RM – Physics, Hena – Business.  The graduates of 2012 / 2013 here in the UK will be leaving with the solid degrees of the past, but their comrades will also be leaving with degrees of the ‘now’.  Here are the, from the Crump perspective, modern, crazy, and fabulous list of degree courses that just wouldn’t have existed (or at least small town Neil Crump would have had no ideas or interest in) when I was a fresh faced young thing pre my coming of age in the early 90s:

  • Acupuncture
  • Adventure
  • Auctioning (circa 90s an auction was for posh people – eBay what?
  • Bioinformatics
  • Casino operations
  • Computer Games
  • Cosmetics (This would have been a good one for me!)
  • Crime Scene Investigation (Rhian-Mari would have loved to do this one)
  • Cybernetics
  • Databases
  • Disaster Studies (I would love this one based on my pre-Chad relationship experience)
  • Digital Media
  • E-Marketing
  • E-Science
  • East European Studies (no-one cared in circa 1990 – now we have fabulous holidays there)
  • Editing
  • Energy Science
  • Ethics (This was probably around, however in the 1990s the syllabus would have been pretty thin!!!)
  • Football (where there is money there is a quality degree course!)
  • Folklore Studies (it probably existed but no one would have cared pre 90s – we do now)
  • Games Design (again where there is a multi-billion dollar industry there will be a degree)
  • Globalisation
  • History of Ideas (I want to do this one – BRILLIANT)
  • Independent Studies (no idea [!] what this would be but I am gonna look into it for you, but you can do this in Suffolk and Sunderland)
  • Information Security
  • Innovation (hells bells – I wanna study this one as well – you can study this all over the bloomin’ place)
  • Internet (in the early 90s this was not even a word I had even heard of!!!)
  • Lighting (pre-energy efficiency bulbs, pre-LED in my day – this is definitely one for me)
  • Multimedia (in the 90s there were about three different types – getting multi would have been very easy – any old juggler could have done it)
  • Security / Defence Studies (this did probably exist but never before has this felt so [I wish un-] necessary)
  • Sustainability
  • Wine Studies (why in hells name hadn’t I seen this / realised this course existed when I was a lad!)
  • Wireless
  • WWW

Well there is my skim list through the list of fascinating degrees up for grabs.  The world has changed, a lot lot lot, but do you know what…  Sophie and the class of the University of Life 2009 are going to have the same experience of nearly 20 years ago.  It’s the most amazing time of your life (whatever you study) you change (I think for the better) meet and make friends with amazing people, wow wee I am so jealous (in a good way).  So Ms Sophie – go for it… have fun, look after yourself (please, please, please), let us come up to Keele and spoil you for a couple of weekends and above all remember it all..

Trust me 20 years on you will be able to relive it all with a smile on your face :+)

(Very edited [;+)] comment from Bath posse are required [ ;+)])

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