| Description | Interview with Jenny McAleese, which is being given on 8 July 2003, in King's College. Jenny graduated yesterday with an Honours degree in English/French. The interviewer is Jennifer Carter.
JC So Jenny, first congratulations on your graduation. I didn't ask you what class of degree you got.
JM I got a 2:1
JC You got a 2:1. Well done! And English and French was a choice from the beginning or was it one you have arrived at by a roundabout route?
JM Well I started off.. I applied to do French and Religious Studies. It was one of the few universities in the UK that was offering it, which is what attracted my attention here and I was told it had a very good Theology Department here and then as it turned out when I came here I changed to study French and Spanish and after a year I changed to study French and English and dropped the Spanish.
JC But none of that, as it were, impeded your degree. You were just making changes as your focus of interest changed. It wasn't more sinister than that, was it?
JM Oh, no. It was just great to exploit the flexibility the University gives you, because at home we have done three A levels and to come and narrow everything down in the university system, it is very difficult, so obviously you change your mind. You find out things. You get the opportunity to try new things, then you narrow down your interests.
JC You are an A level person from Northern Ireland. You choose Aberdeen where as many of your contemporaries, I imagine from school, went to other universities, some to Glasgow perhaps, many to Dundee.
JM Yes. Not so much from my school for some reason. There are a lot of people who just stayed in Northern Ireland. They weren't terribly ambitious, but some of them went to Edinburgh, but the most common is definitely Dundee.
JC Why is that, do you think? Is it a classic pattern of emigration, that you go where other people are?
JM At the risk of being sued by Dundee, I would say it is because their grades are lower and the people that I know that went there it was either for a specific course, so it is not just because of lower grades, but sometimes, like Aberdeen, you can get in through Clearing, so a lot of people from Northern Ireland. Not that they are thick or anything. I am not quite sure exactly, but I was put off by the fact that there were so many Northern Irish people.
JC You visited Dundee before you decided, did you?
JM No, I don't think I did.
JC Did you visit Aberdeen before you decided?
JM Yes. I did a short tour of some Scottish universities so I came through Dundee on the way, but we stopped in at St. Andrews and I found it far too small. It was too much like the wee town that I lived in at home and I wanted to get out and live in a bigger city. Then I came up here and I just loved it. People were very friendly on the tour. It was very strange they just set me off on a mad tour of the University, dragged me up and down stairs, the library, the swimming pool and all round. But I really liked the spread of the place and I just turned up and they were able to find someone to do this.
JC So you didn't have a pre-fixed tour then?
JM Well I did have a tour arranged, but it was very last minute. Whereas something had fallen through at St. Andrews and I was there and they and didn't really want to know. I hadn't come on their specified open day, so.
JC So you were shown round here, presumably by a student, were you, and you got a very good impression of the University.
JM Yes. Well it was more she left me to speak with some of the tutors and I was quite impressed with them and some of the students they got me to speak to, that they just picked on from their classes.
JC Well that's nice. I am very pleased to hear that, that system helped you.
JM Definitely.
JC And then when you got here you had as you have explained one or two changes of course. Looking back on the experience now, and I realise you have taken 5 years because of being 1 year abroad because of French, but looking back on the experience, can you think of particular subjects or parts of the courses that you have enjoyed or particular teachers who influenced you more than others do you think?
JM That's a difficult question! In English, I enjoyed doing socio-linguistics, with ..
JC Sounds terrifying!
JM No it was very good, with Dr. Robert McColl Millar and he is very enthusiastic which is good on this. He is particularly interested in Irish and Scottish Linguistics, so obviously I feel like a star pupil already. It was very interesting. I really liked studying why language is important and why people use it and the grammar and there was a guy called Gert Romberg that I studied under in second year, only it was a first year course as I had picked up English late, and that was basic grammar and he just brought it to life. It is really sad that I really enjoyed doing grammar!
JC Because I bet you didn't do much at school?
JM No, I learnt my grammar through French study, because whenever you went to translate into a new tense, you didn't know what a tense was, so you had to learn, so most of my English grammar came from French originally. The French Department, oh, I don't know. They were all good teachers. The course I particularly enjoyed this year was a French cinema course with Dr. Jubb, which is very good. I have had the chance to try so many things.
JC But by and large it has been a good experience and you have enjoyed your work on the whole?
JM The only thing is that I haven't got to do all the courses I wanted to do!
JC You will have to take another 5 years, won't you later on in your life. And you did a year abroad, was that a good experience? I mean most people enjoy it but it is quite a tough thing to do, especially if you go into a school. I don't know if that is what you did.
JM Yes. That sums it up well. There are challenges, but it is good. There are a lot of highs and lows. The low point of the year was probably when I got chickenpox just before Christmas!
JC I can imagine!
JM And I didn't know when I was getting home and its just really miserable.
JC And did you know the French word for chickenpox?
JM Oh, I learnt it! Varicelle, I have never forgotten it since! That was the low point, but there were high points, when you finally got to know people. I just find the French very difficult … they keep themselves to themselves. They can be very friendly but…especially coming from Northern Ireland where people will talk to you without any invitation and they are very friendly and warm, the French are quite different, but they have their strengths. Like their wine!
JC They are probably more reserved in a way and probably in some ways more old fashioned, like having different ways in addressing friends and strangers and that sort of thing.
JM Yes, which caused me frequent confusion. It was very difficult to judge what to call them, and it was very embarrassing if you got it wrong or if you actually had to ask. At the start I was so clueless I asked a girl, one of my pupils, if I should call her "vous". Which is completely ridiculous, but I just didn't know. I was so confused at what was going on, but I learnt a lot. It was a brilliant experience for my French and I came away and I could see how much I had learnt, even from week to week. You could see what you had learnt. It was brilliant.
JC These subjects, which you studied are they going to lead directly to your next step? I don't know what you intend to do after university.
JM Well I have got into the University again to do teacher training for English.
JC So you are heading for teaching?
JM Yes.
JC Will that be primary or secondary?
JM Secondary.
JC And you are going to stay at Aberdeen to do it. Five years couldn't have been long enough, could it!
JM Well the reason is I am getting married and my fiancé will still be here for another year, so, there wasn't a lot of options! I didn't want to go anywhere else.
JC Is he doing the same sort of thing as you or something totally different?
JM He is doing medicine and he is just going into his last year now.
JC Is he an Irishman or a local?
JM Oh no, he is from Dunfermline!
JC So it looks like you may be stuck in Scotland, doesn't it?
JM Yes, well that's the plan, but I am happy enough with that. I am not sure about my parents, but I am happy enough with it.
JC And your teaching qualification will, presumably, be tradable anywhere in the UK?
JM Yes.
JC So that is helpful, as medics sometimes have to move about before they settle.
JM Well he is also in the Navy, so yes, we will be moving about!
JC Oh well in that case it will be tradable beyond the UK I guess! Does that mean, mentioning the naval volunteer core, or whatever it is called, that you were in that area at all in the University. Did you join any of the service formations?
JM No, not me, I have just been along to events with my fiancé with the naval unit and one of my flatmates, a girl I used to live with, she was in the navy as well, so I have heard a lot about it.
JC You weren't tempted to join were you?
JM I don't think I could really do it. I didn't think I liked boats enough, sorry, they are ships! But no it is very interesting. Last year I had my first real experience of being in a boat and actually doing all the things you need to, using fenders and ropes to tie up and it was really interesting actually, but I think taking orders and all the rest of it, I am not quite sure if I could do it. But I do like their hierarchical structure of it and yeah, there is a lot of appeal in it. My grandmother was in the WRENS.
JC Oh, really in World War 2, presumably?
JM Just after, she is a bit younger, but she is always going on about it. She had a wonderful time. She is so enthusiastic about it. So I have always had it told to me, so she and Andrew talk about it, about their experiences on different ships and stuff.
JC So what sort of social things did you do at university until you fell in with the navy?
JM Well, unlike a lot of students, I didn't actually go out as much as them, as I am not really into drinking and going out a lot, so I would go out with my friends but I like to chat or go to parties and am not really going into night clubs really.
JC That was very fashionable when you first came to university I would imagine, everybody went down to Amadeus, or wherever.
JM Oh, I maybe went to Amadeus once or twice. It is a huge, big, night club, it had a nice big dance floor in it, but if you lost anyone you would never find them for the rest of the night, which is quite disconcerting when you are trying to get home. I was very involved with the Christian Union and they had a real social life. They would have a couple of meetings a week and there is always something going on, so you are always meeting up with people and just with your flatmates, you spend time with them and meet up with their friends. Spent a lot of time around flats and maybe round some other pubs.
JC So mostly a more informal social life rather than joining things, joining societies.
JM Well I have been with the CU and there was a First Aid Society, which was very interesting!
JC Very useful.
JM Yes, I hope I remember some of it.
JC You have to update all the time I am afraid.
JM Yes, I am not covered by the insurance with St. John Ambulance anymore. It was good whenever we did like practice illnesses, and you had to try and work out what to do with somebody. I usually got it wrong! But I was very good at reassuring people. Not very sure what else I have been involved with. I didn't really join any sports activities. Although I did think about it several times, I am not very fit and I am not very good at any sport, so I never had the confidence.
JC So every time you thought about it, you went to have a nice lie down, as P.G. Woodhouse said. So interesting. I was wondering where you lived all this time. You must have perhaps gone through a variety of places in the five years?
JM Yes.
JC Where did you start off?
JM Well I started in Hillhead Halls and stayed in Fyfe House, which is one of the catered houses.
JC For the first year?
JM Yes, which is a very good experience for first year. It helps you to meet a lot of people and it is very eye-opening! You know to come over from Northern Ireland and living with your parents to just being with people. So much freedom and people get into different things and you just find people who you have stuff in common with. Most of my friends I just liked to hang around with in halls most of the time and chat very late into the night and eat lots of chocolates, but you know other people were going out a lot.
JC Did you see a lot of drink and possibly drugs or not?
JM There was a lot of drinking going on and you heard people staggering around drunk all the time. Even the girls, which I always find a bit scary, that they were so out of control that anyone could attack them, that scares me, but that is just my hobby-horse.
JC Was that in your first year that you were already noticing what a lot of women were drinking heavily, or did that come later in your five years?
JM I don't think it had occurred to me so much then. I think when ever I came from school I was more used to people drinking round me, because the people I hung around with outside of school, there was a lot drinking, all the lads, you know, that was the thing to do.
JC That was in Northern Ireland, before you came up to University.
JM Yes, when I came here it was maybe not so much of a shock, but I think, as I am getting older I am finding the music isn't quite what it was before, and people are drinking more!
JC It's getting louder too I think?
JM Well, I am not quite sure, but there were people taking drugs, but you could get into that if you wanted. There were a few people on my floor, I wasn't interested, I didn't want to know about it, so I just didn't.
JC Drugs is a general term. Are we talking cannabis or are we talking heroin?
JM I don't think it would have been Heroin. I think it would have been something softer. I never asked, but it was spoken about in a way that it was something fairly light but as I say I just didn't really want to know.
JC That was the safest thing, simply to keep clear of it, but I am interested that you were conscious that that was going on.
JM Just from a couple of people, but I more heard about it than directly came into contact with them, just because they knew, we didn't have anything in common with them, you know.
JC So that was year one at Hillhead, so what happened after that?
JM Then I moved to a friends flat, her parents had bought her flat, up in Hilton, Hilton Terrace and we stayed there. There were four of us in that flat.
JC Worked well?
JM Yes, it was a lot of fun. There was a girl I didn't get on with so much, but I didn't really know her when I moved in with her and we just had a bit of a clash of personalities. I think, we just didn't see each other very much and she got engaged during that year, so she spent a lot of time with her boyfriend and then fiancé, so she was really interested in the rest of us, and I think that's what it was. But the other 2 girls and I got on really well and we had a lot of fun. So that was good and after that ..
JC That would have been year three, France?
JM Yes, then I came back and I moved in with a girl I had lived with before that flat and another girl I knew through CU connections and another girl who had nothing to do with the CU at all, who was studying Geography with my other flatmate. We didn't know each other very well at the beginning, except for the one girl I had lived with, but it turned out really well. We had an absolutely wonderful year and we stayed in Powis Place, in 57, which is a wee, dinky house. It is sort of poked between two big house and the dentists place. It is an incredible wee house, it is very small at the front and it stretched out at the back, but it is beautiful.
JC You were very lucky.
JM Yes, we had a brilliant time there, but two of them were getting married at the end of the year and the other girl had already made arrangements for a flat from the start of the year and that is when I considered being a sub-warden, as I had no flatmates and I saw the ad in the Gaudie. I thought I would just go for that.
JC So you had a year as a sub-warden at Hillhead, or half a year at Hillhead and then afterwards at Hilton. So what was it like doing that? It must have been odd going back to Hillhead as a more senior student.
JM Yes it was very strange, I wouldn't have liked to go back to Hillhead just to be a normal student. I think that would have been very difficult, as it is mostly first years and there were a lot of first years this year. But it was really good. There was a lot of us.. there was only one or two sub-wardens who had been there the year before, so there was a lot of new people coming in and a new senior warden and a new deputy warden, no, he was maybe there before, but mostly new and we were a really good team and we got on really well.
JC What sort of thing did you have to do? What does a sub-wardens duties comprise? Keeping quiet, I imagine, is one.
JM At the beginning we had, you know, during moving in weekend, at the start of Freshers week, we were welcoming people and helping them find their way about the place, but after that it was a lot it was closing parties and telling them to keep the noise down, or sometimes you would go into people who were sick, sometimes calling an ambulance, sometimes getting silly people who had got drunk and then fallen over, which happened a few times!
JC The first aid kit came in handy there ?
JM You are not allowed to do that, as we are not covered for the insurance of that! No we weren't trained in that we just called the ambulance or the porter took them up to Foresterhill. We got on very well with the porters as we were working together so much and complimenting each others work, the posters and the sub-wardens general got on very well. Except that when they phoned you in the middle of the night and if you didn't respond quickly enough, they would growl at you! I did a lot of fire alarm practices. A serious amount. It was very bad and then when the alarms get set off, as a prank by somebody you have to go and see about that …
JC It all sounds quite a lot of hassle, actually. What did you get in return? Free board and lodge, or cheap board and lodge?
JM Free.
JC Free, so that is significant then.
JM Yes, but it was food in the dining hall! It was a lot better than when I stayed there, the four years before. They had got a salad bar now, which was brilliant and you could take as much as you wanted to eat, which was good. Except I put on weight as I did take as much as I wanted! But generally I had got used to cooking for myself again and I missed that. But it was very useful.
JC But it was free board and lodging, during term time or also during the vacation as well?
JM During the vacation as well.
JC During the vacation as well as you were expected to be there, were you? Or you could be there?
JM Oh, you didn't work during the vacation. That was left to the more senior members of the team.
JC You were allowed to stay on in your flat?
JM Yes. Not so much during the summer, but at Christmas and Easter. So that was useful to be able to do that.
JC And did it change when you went up to Hilton, was it a different deal there or was it similar?
JM Well, it was the same, free food, free accommodation, but I had a smaller place. I stayed in a flat in Keith House down at Hillhead before, and I shared with one guy, so there is a male and female sub warden for each building, or that was what they tried to work out. I lived with an Indian guy who was a lot of fun but then I moved up to Hilton and I had my own place. It was a bit smaller and it didn't have a kitchen, which is a shame, as I definitely couldn't cook then! But it was an interesting experience up there. It is very quiet and they are still developing. They have only just got wardens up there, they are still adjusting from the old system when they just had bursars and porters. So there is some confusion as to what we do. I got called in once in the middle of the night, at 3.00am, as someone had kicked in a ceiling. Just a polystyrene ceiling. I felt like Sherlock Holmes going up to find out what was going on. I had no idea, but you have to act like you do! Just flash your badge and say yes I know what I am doing! But no I didn't do much up there. I felt a bit guilty for it sometimes. They didn't really need me but you were on duty a couple of nights a week, which was more than in Hillhead, you were more regularly on duty. When you were at Hillhead you knew that you were most likely going to be called during the night, so you stayed up really late because otherwise they would wake you up in the middle of the night.
JC How many nights would that be?
JM In Hillhead it was one night in six, and at Hilton it was two nights a week, but you didn't do anything at Hilton. You knew that you weren't going to get called.
JC You could safely go to bed as nothing was going to happen!
JM But in Hillhead I learned quite quickly that you stay up until 1 or 2, because that is when most of the noise is, up to about 3 o'clock, depending on the times the pubs are closing that night and whether the pub at Hillhead is still open, because that is when you get phone calls about people coming back to the flats and making a lot of noise, not realising that nobody else has been out. Sometimes you get a phone call at 4 or 5 am and it was really annoying when you got calls at 6, because you were on duty from 6 pm until 8 am and by then by four or five o'clock if you hadn't been called, then you probably wouldn't be so you went to bed, then if you got called out … oh dear. They didn't usually get such a pleasant face from me at that time. It's not so good.
JC Did this experience at Hillhead lead you to any general reflections about you know the way students, as a group, behave? I mean I have picked up a certain amount of feeling in Old Aberdeen about the local community feeling that students are really a bit of a nuisance. Did you form many views like that or not?
JM I don't know. There's some that deserved the reputation ..
JC You are conscious of such a reputation, are you?
JM Oh, definitely! We have it reinforced, even if it is meant to sort of appeal to us as well.
JC That's interesting, a time when you are really liberated?
JM Yeah, that's the way people, most people, view it. But it really annoyed me, because the Times newspaper do a lot of promotions, especially in Freshers Week and they were promoting some student section of their newspaper and it was all about you are going out and getting drunk and being promiscuous and all this and it was just this very stereo-typical idea of a student. It really annoyed me because I am not a typical student, but come on, you just can't view everyone as typical. I mean we are in the realms of political correctness and anti-stereo types and anti-prejudice, and they are coming out with all that. It is just like "come on we are different". There is a lot of that going on, but it is annoying whenever we are just tarred with that, especially it really, really annoys me when people go on about grants and how we have so much money lying around, and I think that that used to be true, when you got grants and you had a lot of money rolling around, but now you don't get grants and you pay tuition fees, well not Scottish students, but because I am from Northern Ireland, but I study in Scotland, I pay fees and the people who come from England pay fees and that is fair enough as we have chosen to come here, but I really don't like when people are making out that we have money because we don't. We are paying the University and we don't have grants so what a lot of people struggle.
JC Could I ask you how you managed financially?
JM Badly!
JC Did your parents support you, or did you ..
JM We had quite a strange system, as I got my student loan and I would give it to my parents and then they would pay me back in monthly instalments.
JC I see, to make sure it eaked out!
JM Yes, it was very wise of them and also because the student loan that will give the best rate of interest and I think they intend to pay for my fees or something, because they had paid for my sisters fees, because she had gone to a theatre college, and they refused to pay her fees even although she would have been old enough to get the grant. The payal of fees and the removal of the grant were both brought in the year before I started, which was really annoying.
JC Bad timing on your part.
JM Incredibly! So that was just before me.
JC So you had a basic allowance from your parents, which was based on your student loan.
JM Yes, about £100, usually. It went up when I was cooking food for myself, because I kept getting myself into difficulties, so I remember getting £125.
JC We are talking a week a month?
JM A month.
JC It's not a lot of money these days, is it?
JM Well they would pay my accommodation.
JC Oh, I see on top of that.
JM When you are buying books, materials, food and I am not saying I am particularly wise with money, but still, if you are buying a lot of books, it doesn't stretch very far. And doing English courses where you are reading a book a week it was sometimes difficult.
JC Sure. Did you ever take paid work, either in the evenings or in vacations?
JM I am not sure. The sub-warden post well that let my parents off paying for accommodation and saved me money for food.
JC But you didn't do the typical student waitress work, bar work, shop work…
JM No just bad summer jobs to make up for it.
JC Bad summer jobs back in Ireland or here?
JM Oh, I did one last summer here in Initial Textile Services, which is the big laundry.
JC I bet that was hard work.
JM Yeah it was, but it was very boring. You know you are standing all day and you were just making the same movements, so yes, you did get sore, but I survived it! I did about a month in it.
JC And it was probably poorly paid?
JM Yes, it was quite low, I can't remember now, about £4.00 or £5.00 something like that.
JC But looking at it the other way round, it didn't sound from the earlier things you said as if the finance had for you been a major problem.
JM I felt that if things went dreadfully wrong I could go back to my parents.
JC Your year abroad must have helped too, as you were paid as an assistant. Did you come back with a nest egg, like some people do?
JM No! I enjoyed being there and well the food is cheap and if you are eating out, you know you are not paying much, but then you do have money and we made the most of it to go on trips and things, and then at the end I just bought up lots of CD's and books and stuff that would help me in my studies that I wouldn't be able to get over here. Yes, sensible! I went shopping!
JC You were reflecting just now, in general about student attitudes, perceptions and stereo typing and so on, I wonder whether, given that you have had 5 years here, whether you have reflected on any general changes in student outlooks, as you have observed them contrasting the beginning and the end of your course. Or have things stayed much the same? Are there any trends or social changes, or economic changes, you know, talking very broadly about all the people you know, not individuals, but you know. Anything struck you?
JM Well apart from the very obvious money difference, that I have witnessed coming in, .. I am not sure. From going back to Hillhead last year I didn't see a whole lot of difference to when I was there. It just depends what you want to do. I don't see a lot of difference. The University changes every so often, you know, it takes on a new site, merges, sells something off, reconstructs itself to have schools or colleges. I think students haven't changed much.
JC Okay. Is there anything that we haven't talked about that you had expected to or would like to read into your record? As people come to an interview with ideas in their head and I wondered if I had managed to prise all of them out or if there are others still there?
JM I am not sure. I think just to say that I am not the most typical student, because ..
JC Because of where you come from?
JM No, that is fairly typical, there's a fair amount of Northern Irish people here.
End of side 1 of tape 1
Start of side 2
JC This is the start of side 2 of the tape and we were just discussing why Jenny feels that she is not a typical student. I said was it because of Ireland, and you said no. Was it because of your Christian commitment, which you had emphasised earlier? Does that make you an unusual student?
JM Yes, I think that's pretty much what it is. I am not interested in drinking or going out too much, but it is probably, partially, because I... it is not appealing to me, I prefer parties and talking to and meeting diverse people. Although I do enjoy going out dancing, it is just that I don't go as much as other people.
JC Some people live for the clubbing, but you don't.
JM I don't know how they can afford it either!
JC I often wonder too as it is not cheap is it?
JM I suppose if you are skipping food, you get drunk quicker! I don't know.
JC It is interesting that the drink issue has obviously registered in quite a big way with you, you know.
JM Yes, but I suppose it is the most obvious thing, because my friends aren't doing drugs, so it's not like that is the difference between us. Obviously our attitudes to relationships and different relationships and what goes on, or whatever..
JC Do you feel there is a lot of promiscuity among your contemporaries?
JM It definitely goes on, but not so much with the people I was hanging around with
JC You felt you were in a rather different group?
JM Well, even when I wasn't with Christians I was with people who would probably be sleeping with their boyfriends but they would be serious, long term relationships.
JC Not sleeping around?
JM No, that wasn't really the sort of people I was hanging around with and it wasn't due to any particular choices, it is just that you naturally gravitate towards people that you can go out with ..
JC Like with like..
JM Yes.
JC You are presenting a rather interesting picture of the University of people as it were forming groups of like- minded folk?
JM Oh I think people are generally very friendly and willing, I mean in classes if you are given a task people are very easy to get along with and to work with. It is not that people set themselves up against other groups it is not like that. There is sometimes some problems between some very diverse groups, very strong beliefs, or whatever, especially .. We saw it in the pro-war/anti-war feelings around the University.
JC That was strong in the University was it?
JM Yes, mostly anti-war, but it was interesting and I was glad they had a lecture to discuss it you know, that some of the lecturers took a part in. I think that was interesting. I think I took a different line to most students, I think a lot of them were very anti-war, but I wasn't quite so decidedly against war. I am not sure how for it I was but I hadn't made up my mind, whereas a lot of people were immediately anti-war, but having heard about some of the background, you know, I wasn't quite so sure.
JC It is often said that the Aberdeen students are very apathetic, in a political sense, both towards national and international politics and towards you know, university politics, SRC and that sort of thing. For example in an SRC election a tiny proportion of people vote.
JM Yes, but it is getting better, I think the election this year was really promoted, I mean it was really exciting and there was a lot going on and there were posters everywhere and I know that that's part of how they have to do an election, but it was really promoted this year, and I thought that was really good for them, but generally, I think students are generally apathetic. I am not quite sure, obviously as I have only been to this university, but I think that is just a general trend, we are just so laid back and you are always so late for everything and it is just the way it is, you know!
JC Concentrating on your own lives?
JM I don't know what it is, we are just incredible relaxed about everything and things will get done sometime and then oh, woops, it is the night before an essay and maybe it just won't get itself done!
JC But it is not the end of the world if it doesn't.
JM I was a very typical student in that, leaving things to the last minute.
JC Do you think you have learned about deadlines in the course of your university life?
JM Yes, Yes
JC Through missing many?
JM I think I have got a, no, I am not sure if I have got much better! I am still too bad at leaving things until the last minute. My dissertation was an experience to do so much work, and I did pace that out and still is was a week late, which was really annoying as I had worked so hard, but I just ran out of time on the editing as that took so long. But generally no, I am still quite bad with deadlines.
JC Were you computer, PC, literate when you came up or had you to pick up these skills here?
JM I had a little bit but we hadn't done much in school as the computers had only been there for 2 years and my basic computers were very basic and I think they were maybe Applemacs and nobody uses them.
JC And of course we are on a completely different system here.
JM So I have learnt most of the things here and I did a basic computing course just so that I would have some sort of something to show that I did know some stuff, but I use email all the time, but I had never emailed before I came to the University and I was looking to having free email here and I got on to that straight away and spent most of my first year emailing!
JC And do you have a mobile phone?
JM Yes I do
JC Virtually everybody has one now, is that right?
JM Yes they do, but that wasn't so common when I first started.
JC So it is a change over the 5 years.
JM The year before me, one of my friends went to university and he got a mobile and we couldn't believe it, because he was always going on about how broke he was and then he got a mobile, it seemed quite an expense and then the year after or the year after that when I came here they were getting more typical.
JC I suppose texting has made a difference, as it is so much cheaper.
JM Well that was just catching on in my first year that's when I discovered texting and then it caught on towards the end of that year and maybe the year after. Well that's they way I perceived it. But yes texting is wonderful!
JC But talking about computers and stuff, have you found the facilities of the University, just thinking that level, you know sufficiently supportive, enough PC's to go round, enough help? Good enough access to the library, those sort of basic things. They worked well?
JM Yes, I think so. I think it has been very useful. I used to use Edward Wright a lot. It having 24 hour access with the swipe cards that was very useful and I very often just sat up and did essays in the middle of the night, in there. But then I got my own computer thankfully so then I was able to stop that, but yes, the library is very useful and it is open to 10.00pm during exam times so.. I actually worked in the library. That is another job I had during term time. I just shelved books on the 3rd and 4th floor. So that was good, that helped me to find about the cataloguing system and the staff are very, very friendly, so it was very nice.
JC Good, good. There are lots of other services the university provides, I don't know if you used any of them, I don't know whether CU is in touch with Chaplaincy or not.
JM No they don't really work together
JC No I rather thought that. So you wouldn't have been involved with the Chaplaincy. What about things like Student Health or Student Counselling, or advisors of studies. Have any of those crossed your horizon?
JM Well I have been to Student Health and it has been okay. They are quite funny. I find them totally fine, but it is a joke that whatever is wrong with you, you know, you have to go on the pill!
JC That is one of their prime of rules is it?
JM Yes, they are trying to get all the girls on the pill, just in case. I suppose they have seen to many people coming in, in a bad state and I guess they are just trying to prevent that, but you know, you go in for anything and they are trying to get you on the pill!
JC Are you on the pill, as the second question!
JM Yes, or they go on with the stereo types, one of my friends was told that she had to give up smoking and she doesn't smoke at all, it was just cough she had that they wouldn't investigate. They are generally very helpful and obviously I have had some experience support services through doing my sub warden stuff, but I think the University is generally very good for welfare and being interested in students from my experience. The CU does have some contact with the Chaplaincy and the Chaplain and we use the Chaplaincy a lot for things and the Chaplain has always been very friendly towards us, you know, there is no difference, there is no problem with anyone not liking each other, but there a difference of priorities and beliefs. So, but anyway that's a long story.
JC Well it is has been a very interesting talk, thank you very much Jenny, let's wind up now then. I see we are on time. Thank you very much for giving me an hour of your graduating week.
JM No problem.
End of Transcription
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