Surveying the unspoken concepts underpinning higher education

Last summer I applied to ‘attend’ university. ‘What are you attending to, or, for?’ was a question that made me wonder. When we say we are ‘going to university,’ how have we imagined, or rather perceived, what our final destination will look like when it’s all over? Have we as a society become too obsessed in the possessions of degrees, rather than seeing the reality of the modern illusion of having one? Is it not time to reconsider university education as only offering one way of learning and merely as part of a longer, linear experience in the context of a lived life?

This was not my first time in applying, actually it was my fourth. Each time from a different location, Sheffield, Scarborough, Edinburgh and now my latest, Inverness. I was made a ‘Conditional Offer.’ But prior to this offer, having spoken on the phone with the academic leader about the admission process as a mature student, he said ‘if the evidence you submit is not strong enough, I’ll get you to write an essay’. At this point of the call, I was happy, pleased with myself, knowing I had plentiful ‘essays’, which I could submit as part of my UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) application.

I had my recent polemic book, which I had completed over a year ago, articles published online, a manifesto and future projects which I plan to go deeper into the experience of human life. I felt in many ways that nothing could stop me now, seeing my chosen degree as part of my overall life’s destiny.

And, then it all came crumbling down – in my own sense of disillusionment – when once again I began to think through the terms of the ‘conditional offer’. Let’s think about the words used here: a condition has now been set, which in reality is holding back the progress of my own life, a man-made condition (pre-set) to the significance of my being in the world.

You can read the rest of my article at the Scottish Left Review – Surveying the unspoken concepts underpinning higher education. 

 

 

Shall we come, paving out, carving.

Rising, rising shall we rise. Pilgrim we are. Sun.

Sowing, plentiful, the eternal seed.

Seeds, seeds, everyone.

I’ve been invited by the NBF team to read three minutes from my latest book, The Lawyer’s Dream on the 5th October at Waterstones. I feel honoured, and can’t wait.

Patrick Phillips examine the motivation of those that play and pray for profit.

Each year, thousands of books are published that demonstrate how profiteers make profits but never why. My forthcoming book, Ways of Expressing, aims to answer the questions: why are profiteers so insistent on the making of a profit, and what alternative economic-exchange is available to us now? Below are some extracts from it:

http://www.scottishleftreview.scot/profit-ism-the-nightmare-of-daydreamers/

 

 

 

Patrick Phillips, writer and artist, argues that the concept of Local Authorities needs to be totally overhauled, including linguistically, so that the relationship between citizen and state is re-born

I HAVE written previously for CommonSpace about how my mother and I were treated at a time of crisis in our lives by the local authority. We were facing an illegal eviction and corruption of council tax payment from our landlord.

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