| Description | Interview with Mhairi Sim, who has just graduated with an M.A. Hons. degree in French and Hispanic Studies, recorded on 3 July 2002, by Jennifer Carter.
Transcript of Interview :
C So Mhairi you were telling me that your home is Glasgow, so what drew you to Aberdeen to study?
S Well I didn't want to stay at home, and I had always wanted to go to Edinburgh, but then I looked at the two campuses, of Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and I preferred Aberdeen, because it was smaller, cosier, and I suppose also my brother was here, and it made it easier for my parents and everything as well.
C So you had a link with Aberdeen?
S Yes, although I didn't particularly get on with my brother when I first came up! It was just nice to know that there was somebody here.
C Yes, reassuring for your parents as well. Did you come up through a school visit or was it an individual trip?
S I can't actually remember. I think it was an individual trip made just before I left school, half-way through sixth year. So I came up to see the University just before filling in my UCAS form, before leaving school.
C Why did you leave half-way through sixth year ? Did you just get fed up?
S Yes. Well I got my grades for Highers in fifth year and then I went away to France to be an exchange student and live with the host family for six months.
C So it was when you came back that you didn't want to plug back into school again, or did you go away ?
S No. I went away in January when all my friends were still in sixth year. I came back and came straight to University.
C I see. Which school was that?
S Glasgow High School.
C It's a good school. And they were not disappointed that you didn't come back?
S No. I don't think so!
C Maybe it's such a big school they would hardly notice. That's interesting, and your choice of subjects was clear before you came to Aberdeen, was it?
S No. Before I came up I actually do Law and French, because my dad is a lawyer, and I got good grades and he said it was a very good general degree. So I just applied for Law and French in every university and then came up here with the intention of doing that, but I found after first year I wasn't enjoying Law at all, and I wanted to do something different.
C So did you take up Spanish at that stage?
S Yes. For a month in sixth year before I left school I did Spanish and then I decided in the second year at Uni. to start doing Spanish as well. So I just went straight into second year Spanish Literature, first year Spanish Language.
C So that was probably quite hard work, wasn't it ?
S Mmm. Catching up with everybody.
C Especially compared with the French which you had been doing right through school and you had had a six months placement in France. But it worked out okay did you find?
S It worked out fine, except that when I went into second year I didn't know very many people. Because in first year you are basically with your Law class and then the French part is with Law students who do French. So when I went into second year I was with completely new French people, and I was in a first year Spanish class and a second year Spanish class, and I hardly knew anyone.
C So it was a bit complicated?
S Yes. So I lived with old friends and everything who still did Law!
C Well we will come on to the social side in a moment, but just pursuing the academic chain for a little bit further, did you find as the course developed that both languages were about equal for you? Or did you find that one of them was always more your thing than the other?
S French was always a lot better.
C It remained the dominant language. Do you think it was just because you had done it for so much longer or...?
S I think it was because I went away for those six months away, because that was when I learned French. It all came together. And without that six months I would have come to University and been practically like a beginner again.
C I understand. In the case of Spanish where did you do your time abroad for that?
S Well in third year after doing one year of Spanish, I went abroad to France to be a Lectrice, an assistant, and you couldn't do half and half, like two years ago, or whenever it was, I think you can now, so at the time I just went to France for a year and the summer before I went to Malaga, to a school for learning Spanish for foreigners and the summer after I did the same thing and was at the top level and so I started working at a bar there as well.
C So you went back to the same learning school, the Malaga school?
S Yes - because I knew the people
C And you took up outside work to help pay you way and so on. To get a different range of vocabulary I would imagine!
S Except that it was basically for the students, the bar, it was downstairs, so a lot of English talking went on there.
C That was not ideal for you.
S Not completely ideal.
C So those two six month periods, were they both six months when you add them up?
S No, well it was three months, and then it was a year, and then it was three months.
C So you had a year in France, although that was already your stronger language, but only six months in Spain.
S Yes, because there was a gap in between I wasn't speaking Spanish at all in my year away, I was speaking English basically, with a little bit of French, and you are not meant to speak French to them while you are there. I didn't speak a lot of French whilst I was there.
C How did you find that year abroad? Okay you had been in France before, but probably only with the family?
S I lived with the family before, and I went to school as a student, and then this time it was the other side.
C You were on the other side, as a teacher. How did you find that ?
S I found being a Lectrice quite difficult, because the teaching system in France,.. I don't think it is like here. The professors relate to each other differently. They don't talk to each other, unless it is a specific subject. So the English department talk to each other, but they don't know anybody who does History. So as a Lectrice no body talked to us, because we were just the kind of…, helpers, we were so young. I was only three years older than the students I taught. So we were stuck right in the middle and it was very difficult to talk to anybody, any of the teachers.
C How many of you were there?
S In the school there was, me from Scotland, my friend Darcy from America, so that was two English assistants. There was a girl from Venezuela, who was a Spanish assistant, and there was a girl from Germany.
C So the four of you became a sort of little huddle?
S Yes, except that before you start teaching we went to a Stagè in Nantes, to learn how to become Lectrices, and I met an English girl who studied in Edinburgh and the two of us got very friendly and we moved in together, and the other three assistants in my school lived together. So I was kind of cut off from them again!
C And where was this that you were doing this?
S It was in Ange, beside the Loire.
C What was that like as an experience?
S It was amazing. I would do it all again definitely.
C Despite the problems with being a Lectrice?
S Yes. The thing was, that you were quite isolated as a Lectrice, except when you are in the classes, it's your class and you do what you want. So you are free, and I loved that. I could just tell them to do what ever I wanted them to do!
C What sort of things?
S "Today we are talking about Prepositions", and they would all be like "great"! So that was really good, and then the town I was in Ange, there were three universities and a lot of foreign students. So we had a lot of different events and different places to go to and things to do and see.
C But quite a lot of temptation not to speak French, I believe?
S Yes, I met an Irish boy, who was an exchange student, and started going out with him. I lived with the English girl. I talked to the American assistant at school, and I talked to my kids in English.
C I am amazed you got your degree!
S I know!
C And a good one as well! How did you find the French school system? As obviously you had a double experience, both as a pupil and as a Lectrice. How did you find that compared with Scotland? More disciplined, less disciplined. Students tend to stay on longer, don't they? They tend to be older on the whole.
S Yes. They only have their main exams when they are eighteen. Their Baccalaureates.
C So they have to hang on at school till they are eighteen.
S Yes, and they have to get those, and if they don't get them there is not a lot they can do afterwards. But I don't know about the discipline thing, because I remember when I was a student the teachers had no control over the class, and everybody just talked, so I was just quite happy to talk as well! And then on the other side as a Lectrice I noticed that they didn't really care what I was saying a lot of the time.
C It was quite difficult to maintain discipline then?
S Yes, and then I tried, one time when I got really annoyed with the class and I went out to get another teacher, but I was meant to have stayed in the class at all times to look after them, but I couldn't handle it, and I went and got another teacher, and basically it was the Assistant Principal, and he just laughed along with the students, and I felt completely under-mined and stupid. I didn't like that at all. So that drove an even bigger ridge between the professors and the students and me.
C Poor old you: I haven't had quiet that account of a Lectrice's position. I understand perfectly what you are saying. It sound's horrid!
S It is. It is quite difficult at times..
C Because, after all, you were not a trained teacher, apart from the induction course you had?
S Exactly and they expect you to know what you are doing. There were in the English department itself, three or four teachers who were brilliant. They gave us so much help. They gave us things that Lectrices in the past had done, and then one of my classes, their teacher actually lived right next door to me and my friend, so we just to ask him all the time "Help us!"
C Well that's good. So that's fine and apart from this experience abroad, did the courses here live up to you expectations? Did you enjoy them?
S The literature side in French I didn't enjoy. I didn't find it very stimulating. A lot of it was fourteenth century or something like that, and I didn't like that. I didn't really enjoy a lot of the books. But when I did Spanish literature, I really enjoyed that, because it was primarily Latin American, It was fantasy, realism, a lot more interesting than the French.
C Did you have to do a dissertation on either side?
S I did my dissertation on the French side, because I enjoyed the Spanish courses so much, and I knew I would have to do another French course. But the problem with my dissertation was that I was in Mexico doing a charity project over last summer, just before the dissertation was due in, so I didn't do quite enough work for it.
C You got through?
S Yes I got through it in the end!
C What was it about?
S It was Joan of Arc, the changing images.
C I see, interesting.
S It was okay, but I was more interested in being in Mexico…
C I can imagine!
S Seeing the pyramids.
C So how did that come about, moving on the academic more to the social side?
S It was just, I think, when was it? Did my friends graduate last year? So it was just when I came back after France, I decided that I was going to be pretty alone anyways, as I didn't know many people, being away for another year, and my friends all about to graduate, so I decided to do the HELP project, which my friend who I had lived with in France had told me about. So we started doing that, and I was the co-ordinator of the Mexico group. So I had to organise loads of things round campus, met loads more people. Had a bit more of a social life again.
C That sounds fun. I haven't heard of this particular network.
S HELP. It is HELP Scotland. It is Humanity and Educational Long Term Projects. And it is a Scottish registered charity, run by the students. And basically you go abroad to…, we have five different connections in different countries, and you go abroad and the aim is to help the community, without taking work away from the locals. So to work alongside them, and provide for them.. You do fund raising here and go across, and you basically have to take note of all the accounts, that you give out money for materials, and then your group does all the labour. It was really good. We did four weeks: four weeks doing the project and we travelled for eight weeks afterwards.
C Wonderful.
S Yeah, Amazing!
C And so what was the nature of the project?
S It was an orphanage, which hasn't quite got underway yet, because they have got the plot of land, and the previous help groups have made buildings, and basically the orphanage was to come self-sufficient, but there is no kids there or anything yet, just the Director. We made a handicraft workshop, so that they would be able to make things and sell them afterwards, and there was a little soap-house, and they were making soaps, and just testing them out before the kids were meant to come and make them themselves.
C That sounds excellent.
S It really was. It was really good.
C So it was actual physical labour, building the place?
S We had to flatten the terrain, so that when we laid the tiles they wouldn't break when you stood on them, and that took so many days!
C Had you ever done anything like that?
S No!
C Were any of you skilled labourers?
S No. On the first day we all got handed a machete and told - there you go there's the Palm trees, machetes, off you go! We were all like "Oh my goodness"!
C How many of you were there?
S Six in our group and then another a boy came out when there were two weeks of the project left, because he was a medic.
C So six or seven of you doing quite a big project?
S And there was only two boys in the end. So it was all the girls.
C You must have come back very fit?
S I did actually. Especially climbing all the pyramids afterwards, running up to the top.
C Great. So you've been abroad to Mexico, to France, to Malaga, any other trips abroad?
S Just before I became a student, I went to Italy to be a camp-site courier. So I wanted to go to France to do it there, but because I said that I did Standard Grade German, they sent me to Italy, because apparently all the Germans go to Italy! So I ended up in Italy, and again it was brilliant, but again all the workers were older and all the kids were more my age, and I hung around with them!
C Right.
S Apart from that I can't think where else I have been. Oh, I went and did a thing in France for Camp Beaumont, which I was a group leader for foreign children. And then it was in the Isle of Wight and France, the two places.
C So how did you cope in Aberdeen itself. You told me you arrived here and you had an older brother going through the University already. Where did you stay and so on?
S In the first year I stayed in Crombie Halls, and it was because my brother had stayed there the year before. My parents had seen it and said "right"
C That's the one you will go to!
S Exactly! So it was really nice. We had the ensuite bathroom as well. My room was in a tiny little corridor with fire-door on either side, and across there was another girl, Heather, who has become my best friend, and we are still in contact, five years on. She is in Edinburgh now.
C It happens so often, doesn't it? That the person you are rooming next in first year at university.
S Some how, I don't know how the University does it. It is amazing!
C Just chance, I think!
S Apparently, it was so lucky though.
C Then you moved on from Crombie and went to stay where?
S In Elphinstone. We were meant to get a flat with four or five of us sharing, but people dropped out in the summer just before, so it was me and my friends in a bottom flat, and then another two girls, that we were friends with, in the flat above. So it was really handy.
C And that worked out okay?
S Yes.
C And then what?
S In third year it was France, and then in fourth year I went into a flat that my parents own. They had bought it when my brother had went into second year, so my brother was there three years and I have been there for the past two years.
C And has that proved a good investment? Are they selling it on, or keeping, or what?
S Yes, it is sold now, so I am trying to pack it up at the moment.
C Has it sold well? They have not lost money on it?
S No they have got quite a lot back.
C That's very good. When it works out that is a very good scheme, isn't it?
S Yes, and they saved a lot…
C And did you bring others in a tenants whilst you were there?
S Yes, last year I had my two friends, who lived with me, and this year of course I didn't know as many people, and I had been in Mexico last year, so I just had to put up a notice.
C And you got two decent lodgers did you?
S I got one. Who was a fourth year old postgrad. or something. I am not really sure what he did. But I didn't see him a lot, because I was with my boyfriend most of the time!
C So it was you and your boyfriend and the fourth year old lodger?
S Yeah. Kind of like that.
C I see. Against that background of varied accommodation arrangements, and I'm interested you know, you know that you parents did the flat thing, which so many people seem to do now. How did it all work out financially? I mean, how have you supported yourself through the university?
S In 1st year I got a job at Pizza Hut as a delivery girl, and I only stopped working there two weeks ago.
C Gosh, so that was a way to get to know your way round Aberdeen.
S Yes, it helped a lot, now I know all the streets and everything. And when I went away for my year abroad, they said I could come back, when I returned. Which was brilliant.
C Did they provide transport? How did you get about?
S No. I used my car.
C And that worked out financially okay.
S Yes. There was a few things that aren't quite right with my car, not to put off prospective buyers! But it worked out fine. I was given my wages, tips and fuel costs as well. So I earned quite a lot. I could get about £10 an hour. Which worked out brilliantly, because a lot of it was cash in hand, from the tips.
C Student wages being normally, I would think, at most five pounds per hour?
S I got four pounds ten. So it worked really well just because the fuel, they gave you far too much money for fuel costs.
C So it was a sort of hidden tip as it were.
S And then with the tips as well it was brilliant.
C And that kept you busy most evenings I would imagine?
S I did it three nights a week.
C And the weekend at all?
S And the weekend, well I did two nights at the weekend and 1 night during the week.
C And when you emerge now, you are going to have enough money to take a two year gap period?
S Yes, Well I wasn't quite going to have enough money, but I am planning on selling the car, well I am trying to at the moment, and that is hopefully going to fund the trip.
C Are you burdened with debt? Are you going to have to pay back a student loan?
S No. I don't have any debt at all.
C That's wonderful! So you have got by without incurring debt. That must be almost unique!
S It is brilliant, fantastic. Because my mum and dad gave me money for bills and food and things. Because they did it with my brother before, so they couldn't change it!
C They had got into the habit!
S Exactly!
C So you never needed to take a student loan?
S. No, and then the trip to Mexico, because we fund raised so much money. You fund raised individually and for the group. So we paid for quite a lot of our flights out of fund raising, and this year the beginning of our trip is associated with HELP as well. We were meant to be going to the Philippines, but it has fallen through because of the problems out there. So instead we are going to Thailand and we are still trying to find another project, but we have still done all the fundraising, so we have all he money at the moment. So it has helped with some of the costs as well. About three pounds each, I think, towards the air fares.
C That's good. A two year gap year is quite a long one, isn't it? So you hope to start in Thailand and what else do you plan to do in that period of time?
S Well we are going to travel through, it is just me and my friend, Helen, who I was in Mexico with last year. We met each other through HELP. We got on so well for three months away we decided that..
C You could risk two years !
S Exactly. Yeah. So - what was the question again?
C What you plans were over these two years.
S We are going to be doing the project for four weeks. Then travel down through Indonesia, Malaysia, and then mid-October we are flying to New Zealand. We are going to stay there till about July, of next year, and do a year in Australia.
C And in both those cases, hoping to pick up casual work.
S Yeah. I have got my letter of reference from Pizza Hut!
C I am sure Pizza Huts exist in New Zealand and Australia.
S So I should be okay!
C And long-term beyond that, what are your plans?
S I would really like to work abroad. I don't want to be stuck in Scotland. I don't like the weather! So I'd like to work in the EU.
C Somewhere warm. Southern Europe preferably.
S Yea. Well Spain or even France. I would quite like to work in the EU, and it is a year of interviews, and I may get based in Edinburgh, with the British Civil Service, and enter the fast stream.
C Oh, you are thinking of getting in via the British Civil Service?
S Yes. Because they train you up, and I just don't want to take the chance that I come back and blow it straight away. I would rather…
C So you would presumably make your applications while you are abroad, will you?
S Yes, except that the applications have to be in by September, and it's the next September that you would join, and you have to basically be around to have interviews. So I can't apply until I have returned.
C So you will have to fill in some time when you come back?
S Yes. I don't know what I am going to then.
C Perhaps you will be going back to Pizza Hut ?
S That's the worst case scenario!
C No, I am sure you will pick up something more interesting. And that would of course also help with your Civil Service application. Good, well that is all extremely interesting. What haven't we covered, I wonder? I seem to have learnt quite a bit about your time.. Oh I know, One thing I haven't asked you. How have you found your, from your university experience, how have you found the various student services, for example, library, computing. Both okay?
S At the beginning, I didn't really tend to use either the library or the computers, because I wasn't computer literate. I didn't really do computer studies at school of anything. I only picked up an email address between 1st and second year, and I didn't really care about the computers. Now it is amazing. Access twenty four hours a day. It is brilliant. The libraries are… I mean I didn't know I could take out so many books, until this year! Oh fantastic! I think they are very good as well. Heavy Demand is a bit annoying, when you go in and you have to stay there, as somebody else has booked it already. But then that is the only fair way to do it. Returning books, if it is up to a week, when they send out forms for people to return them, that's quite annoying, because generally you want it back quicker than that.
C Yes. And what about the other student services. We have quite an elaborate network of advisers, counsellors, student health, chaplaincy, blah, blah. Did you ever have occasion to use any of them or careers ?
S Student health. I use all the time, because I have asthma.
C And they are good?
S Yes. Brilliant. I just go in and she gives me all my medicine. The dentist service I used for the first time this year, and that was brilliant as well. Adviser's, I was never very sure about, because in 1st year I had a Law adviser. His room was always a mess, and I didn't know how he could understand what I was doing if he didn't even know who I was and what he was doing! In the second year, when I went into French and Spanish, I had the same Law adviser, so I never saw him.
C That was not very helpful.
S And then in third year I think I had an English department adviser as well, and I never saw him either. So that was a bit useless. Other services, Careers I went into just the other day for the first time, because I knew I was going away, so I was not all that bothered. But the guy was very helpful for my CV.
C And you have know how to get all the Civil Service forms and things? And you have never been near a counsellor, I am sure, - no I didn't think so!
S What other services ? The Student Representative Council. That's quite good because it is just pigeon holes, so for help I just go in and pick things up. It is always open, and it's handy.
C And what about things like meals on campus, is that something you do or not?
S In 1st year in halls we did.
C Yes, of course, as you had paid for your breakfast and your dinner.
S And they were quite repetitive. Chicken Florentine, that's one I remember, with the chicken and spinach.
C Obviously not your favourite food!
S I think we got that like twice a week sometimes! But it was okay. It was fine, except if you didn't really want to eat, you felt kind of forced to, otherwise you were losing all your money. The Ref. I have never actually had a proper meal in, but I have had sandwiches, they were fine. There could maybe a few more shops up High Street….
C Snacky type things ?
S Yes, or there could be a little café, or something nice.
C Yes, I think there are plans for that, but goodness knows when its all going to happen.
S It must be quite difficult to get planning permission up that road..
C Oh, yes, there is a problem there, and I think Pizza Hut would love to come in. I don't think that planning authorities would be terribly thrilled.
S I could imagine that! A Chinese take-away or something.
C So that's been very interesting, Mhairi. Is there anything we haven't covered, that you think we should have done? Or anything I don't happen to have asked you, that you had in your mind that you would like to say …
S No. I can't think of anything at all.
C It's been basically a good experience.
S Yes it has.
C Despite all these funny ups and downs and byways you have taken?
S I am glad I chose Aberdeen because I think if I had been in a bigger city, growing up in a big city, and if I had gone to Edinburgh, I think I would have been bored and lost and found it very repetitive. Whereas Aberdeen is small enough, that you get to know everywhere, and big enough that there is always surprises. I love Aberdeen now, but saying that, the temperature is a wee bit too cold for me, and I don't think I will be returning!
C Especially when you come out of Amadeus at two in the morning, and it's quite chilly down at the beach! Okay, well thank you very much for that, it has been a helpful interview.
S Thank you.
End of interview
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