University, interesting books, and the death of blogging

I’ve been back at university for almost two weeks now, and it still feels strange to write these words. For those who don’t know, I decided to get a second undergraduate degree, studying Classical Studies at the Open University. This means studying online rather than going to a university in person, and I’m also doing the course part time. It’s a very different experience to anything I’ve done before.

I already have two degrees, a Bachelor of Arts In Spanish and a master’s degree in Social and Public Policy. My first degree was pretty conventional. I went off to university and experienced all the chaos of being a young undergraduate student in an unfamiliar city. My Master’s degree was a very different experience because it took place during the Covid-19 pandemic. Much of my teaching content was moved online, and it’s fair to say that nobody was really prepared for that. Everyone did their absolute best, but it often felt quite haphazard.

Somehow, even though only a few years have gone by, I feel much more prepared for this degree than I have for anything else. Perhaps it’s that I’ve taken a lot of time to understand myself and the way my brain works. I feel like I have strategies that enable me to be productive even if I’m not as productive as I would like to be. I’m also studying at a very slow pace, about 50% Of What the degree would be full-time. But it’s not like I’m not doing anything else. I work full time And so I do have to put in a lot of effort to balance studying and working.

I had no idea what it would be like to go back to university as a blind student. I wouldn’t have that much contact with lecturers, certainly not as much as you do at a brick university. Would I have good access to the materials? What would I do if things weren’t accessible? More to the point, I’m spending my own money on this. Was I going to spend money on modules that I couldn’t even access? These were all questions at the front of my mind before I started.

The good news is that so far things have been really great. I personally feel as though significant thought has gone into ensuring that the content is accessible to as wide a range of people as possible. Studying materials are sent to you in print, but they are also available on the website. Content that is primarily accessed through the website is also available for download. This means that whether you learn best in print or digitally there is something that you can work with. Videos have transcripts and photos have image descriptions. I was genuinely surprised by the amount of effort that has gone into ensuring that students will be able to access the content without having to go through the lengthy process of requesting adjustments. Its definitely an example of what a difference good course design can make.

I don’t say this to criticise staff working At other universities. The reality is the academic landscape is pretty bleak at the moment. Teaching staff are under immense pressure from those In managerial positions. Budgets are being cut, and more and more demands are being placed on everyone. Staff are expected to teach as well as support students through all kinds of situations, and conduct world leading research at the same time.

I don’t think it is intentional that courses are designed in a way that excludes disabled people. Often it is what the university expects. So perhaps it is intentional, but more often than not, it is not the intent of academic staff to exclude. They are constrained by the same system that negatively impacts the students they teach. Like many things it is nuanced and impossible for me to fully address in a blog post like this.

Another new thing is that I’ve started listening to podcasts. It might surprise you to know that although I read a huge amount and generally in audio format, I’ve never been a huge podcast fan. I’ll dip in and out of a tech podcast here and there and I enjoy catching the news that way, but other people seem to be obsessed with podcasts and I am somewhat clueless about the whole thing. Yes, I used to make a podcast. But honestly I’ve never been an avid consumer of them.

However, I started listening to Things Fell Apart. It’s a podcast by the journalist Jon Ronson where he explores various “culture wars” and how we ended up in the mess we’re in now. I’m fascinated by social media, activism, politics, and human beings. I like his style as well. He lets people speak, even if some of the people he’s interviewing aren’t very nice people. He’s not there to argue with them, only to show humans for what they are, and to let us make our own decisions. From listening to that I ended up exploring more of his work. He made a couple of podcasts about the adult film industry, one on a conspiracy theory surrounding the Oklahoma City bombing, and I’m now reading a book he wrote on extremists who believe in conspiracy theories. It’s all a bit intense, but I appreciate how he approaches all of these topics.

It’s really easy to dismiss certain people as violent and crazy. I’m not saying they’re not. But I think we often forget to ask ourselves how and why they got to where they are. What does that tell us about the world we live in? How do we identify that someone is heading down a path like that? Is there anything we can do? If you’re interested in this sort of thing I do recommend having a listen to one of his podcasts.

Despite all of the good things, this week has felt a bit stressful and like I have too much I need to do. I think it’s because I’ve got a lot on at work and there are a few personal deadlines looming. That tends to happen. I’ll have a few weeks of calm and then suddenly ten things that need to be done land on me and I’m snowed under for a little while until I can dig myself out. I’m in one of those periods at the moment. I’m trying to deal with the critical stuff first so that I can free up a tiny bit of space in my head.

If you were expecting some kind of grand point to this blog post, there isn’t one. I wanted to write an update and share where I’m at right now. I miss the Internet of blogs, where people wrote about their lives day to day, in a lengthier and arguably more thoughtful way than we tend to do on social media these days. I’ve read so many arguments that say blogging is dead, or that it’s actually booming but only if you want to sell something. Blogging is great, they say, as a way for you to market your product. But what if you have nothing to market? What if all you are is thoughts and questions and a desire to connect with people through words? What then? Maybe it isn’t blogging as a format that is dead, but the intent behind it. Perhaps the sort of awkward, sincere blogging of the early 2000s is dead. I don’t know.