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So the results are in, and I just managed to haul my average over 70% to get a First Class Honours classification in my degree. And many people have been asking me “what next?” Well I’d kind of like to work out just what I now have a degree in. Not least because the research for my soon-to-be-published dissertation made me think more about what a degree is about in contemporary higher education.
Ostensibly, of course, my subject was “Economics, Politics and International Relations” and there were a number of reasons for studying it when I did. First, it did seem a little odd to me, having been a governor of the university, not to hold one of its products, a degree. At the time, a former Pro-Vice-Chancellor was retiring, and her story, of having only started her academic career with her first degree, aged fifty, and now retiring at the top of the institution just fifteen years later, inspired me that it was not too late in life. The university was advertising for the first time a course intended from the start to meld economics and politics (as opposed to previously simply taking two separate self-contained fields of economics and politics) and I wanted to support that, having been interested, but never educated, in both economics and politics for a long time.
But most of all, I had come to the conclusion that, in the longer term at least, I wanted out of IT. I’m not a technology whizz-kid, so my only way to progress in IT would be into management, a thought that leaves me cold: with apologies to line managers everywhere! I want to write, about anarchism, freed markets and private law, and a credential looks good on a book jacket. I want to research, and teach, political economy, convinced that nobody should go through a course in politics without understanding some of the economic consequences of their policy recommendations.
So today, I graduate, but in what, I wonder? It’s only in the last few weeks of my studies, as I was researching my dissertation, that it dawned on me that we are generally speaking not being taught specific skills in the subject we chose, as if such a degree prepares us directly for a specific job (and civilization would probably not survive if all 200 or so politics and related students in every university became, er, politicians!). Even less so, perhaps in subjects in which there is much, and rapid, technological change. The so called “relevance half life” of what can be taught in a three year degree is often now too short to make teaching specific skills or ideas that might change before you put them into practice viable.
Enter the concept of “graduate attributes” - generic attributes that it is judged set a graduate apart from poor folk, like me three years ago, who had never been to university. Yes, you demonstrate your aptitude in those attributes through studying, researching and writing about your chosen subject, but it is the graduate attributes, rather than the subject, that many people now regard as the primary output - and conveniently, they allow comparison to be made across academic disciplines and subjects. The previous “learning outcomes” of each programme and module are mapped onto five, in Brookes’ case, core graduate attributes:
a) Academic literacy
Disciplinary and professional knowledge and skills, understanding the epistemology and ‘landscape’ of the discipline, and what it means to think and behave as a member of that disciplinary and/or professional community of practice.
b) Research literacy
Ability to be a critical consumer of research, and also, where possible, to design and undertake at least a small-scale research project in the discipline, using appropriate methodology.
c) Critical self-awareness and personal literacy
Understanding how one learns, the ability to assess the work of oneself and others, and to identify one’s strengths and weaknesses. The ability to organise oneself and perform as an autonomous, effective and independent learner. The ability to relate to other people and function collaboratively in diverse groups, including the development of appropriate interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence and adaptive expertise.
d) Digital and information literacy
The functional access, skills and practices necessary to become a confident, agile adopter of a range of technologies for personal, academic and professional use. To be able to use appropriate technology to search for high-quality information; critically to evaluate and engage with the information obtained; reflect on and record learning, and professional and personal development; and engage productively in relevant online communities.
e) Global citizenship
Knowledge and skills, showing cross-cultural awareness, and valuing human diversity. The ability to work effectively, and responsibly, in a global context. Knowledge of global perspectives on how disciplinary knowledge is represented and understood within other cultures; cross-cultural capability beginning with an awareness of our own culture and perspectives and the development of the confidence to question one’s own values and those of others responsibly and ethically; and responsible citizenship, actively engaging with issues of equity and social justice, sustainability and the reduction of prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination.
If you are assiduous and carefully read all the module and programme documents, and all the expected learning outcomes of each piece of coursework or exam, the mappings become clearer. And whilst I would not hesitate to tell an undecided potential student to go and do a degree - it really has been the best thing I’ve done I think - I’m not entirely sure that I wasn’t already in possession of most or all of these attributes already, just by virtue of a nearly thirty year career. I can see that for traditional route undergraduates, moving from school to university and then into the world of work, they provide a useful mechanism for “filtering” by employers and others evaluating those graduates, and of course, it provides a piece of paper for me too that confirms I have them, whether or not I had them previously. But how often I am going to be called on to prove it, I’m not entirely sure!
All the same, it’s been a great three years - though I can barely believe it has been three years! I have enjoyed (nearly) every minute of it, and am very grateful for Brookes as an employer giving me the time to do it alongside my day (and night) jobs. I hope everyone enjoys the graduation!
And if you are really keen, and near internet access at 12:30 today, you can even watch it (a link will appear by the 12:30 19th June ceremony in the table shortly before it starts)