Saturday, November 03, 2007

Where have all the hardworking students gone?

I emailed this to the editor of the Irish News today. Do you think he'll print it?

Where have all the hardworking students gone?



They had no classes this week, but they were still up in the Holylands. What for? To study? If so they must be able to drink and study at the same time. Ah, the resilience of youth!! A simpler explanation is that they were not studying, but drinking non-stop. Ah, the resilience of youth!!


The Irish news recently published a letter by a “Holyland Resident” speaking up for the

Poor students in their cramped hovels, struggling to work and study and make ends meet. No cosy Housing Executive or Housing Association homes for them!!”

The reply to that is a simple statistic; 50% of Queens undergraduates don't go to class. The streets are crammed out with new cars bought by wealthy parents for pampered offspring. What a waste of taxpayers' money! You, the public, are paying for these people to come up here and abuse education. Working class people are turned away from Queens. Their places are taken by these fools.


Over Halloween the streets were filled with drunks. The Police stood around, their eyes wide, their impotence made clear by feeble attempts to corral the “students” back into their comfy houses, refurbished by you, the taxpayer, to the tune of £24,000 to £36,000 per property.

One of us (Joanne) experienced the kindness and good character of our future "Doctors, politicians, accountants and taxpayers" in the form of projectiles through her front window and abusive grafitti daubed on her yard door. On one occasion a "student" pushed past her after entering her home and climbed into her child's bed. The police, predictably, are not pursuing charges.

We've had a week of mayhem culminating in an endless night of drunken chaos.

Where have all the hardworking students gone? They're not to be found in the Holylands.


Holyland Residents




20 comments:

hadenough said...

Hi
I was just wondering if the weekend angels ( as during the week they are devils) parents are going to cover the cost for cleaning the holylands after the angels had a week long party an left it that bad that the rats were packing their bags an leaving.

Anonymous said...

There were classes last week.

belfast samizdat said...

Queens were off. I don't know about the other institutions. It makes sense that mid-term break would fall at the same time for all of them.

Anonymous said...

i dont agree with many of the things you post but usually you research the facts but sorry although a small minority of courses had a reading week the majority of queens students were in classes last week, trust me i was present monday to friday

Anonymous said...

Queens were not off. Some students may have had a reading week but not everyone gets off at Hallowe'en.

Anonymous said...

Reading week is this week, wanker, if you went to class yourself, you would know!

belfast samizdat said...

I stand corrected about Halloween.

Anonymous said...

Yes, and how's the degree coming? Let's face it, you're not academic really are you?

Anonymous said...

When do you last attend a class? Never mind other students.

Anonymous said...

What do you mean WHY are they still in the Holylands? Is it not someones right to live at an address that they pay rent for whenever the time of year? Who's the ethnic cleanser now?:)

belfast samizdat said...

You're deliberately avoiding the point. What are they doing here if not studying? The question applies to more than just Halloween week? Why do half the undergraduates not go to class? What are they doing here?
We all know that this is partyville and that these people are abusing education, not to mention taxpayers' money.
Spare me your smug jibes. It's all a bit previous.

Anonymous said...

Abusing taxpayers money? You would know. You are a lazy waste of space, get a life and a job...

Anonymous said...

"not to mention taxpayers' money"
and who do you think has been paying for you over the last 8+ years?

Anonymous said...

Erm, "anonymous" you referred to someone as a wanker for saying Queens was off. I'm a Law student at Queens and I didn't have a reading week. No-one in my flat had a reading week. Only a minority of students do. Most of the people who do had it the week after Halloween as well. So you're the one who's mistaken here. You should probably lay of the assumptions.

Anonymous said...

No I think Belfast Samizdat steals that pleasure from me! I am a Spanish student and we did. But most do not.

Anonymous said...

I don't think you will find students anywhere behaving much differently to students in the Holylands. You are talking about how Working class people get turned away in favour of other people? You think admissions base decisions on money? of course not. most of the time, students are paying for things with their loans, loans which working class people could easily get. In fact, Working class people can get large grants, so lets not pretend this is a class issue. I know Working class people at university and they are there because they worked hard to get there. Even if the entire student populus was composed of working class people, im sure all the same problems would exist

Anonymous said...

I would like to ask why all students have become tarred with the one brush!! As a student living in this area for 4 years i would like to point out that i have never once been in conflict with residents and like to mind my own buisness as many others also like to! It has become apparent that many residents 'live' to cause conflict in this area! As a full time student, with no days off, i work hard, and yes i also socialise with my friends. I have a car, but by no means am i supported by 'rich' parents. I work 17 hr a week to try and cover my expenses, with no help from my parents. Id also like to point out there were no mid term breaks, classes ran as normal over this period for many. It is disgraceful that all 'students' are blamed for this conflcit, when it is a mere 3% of the student poulation in conflcit with a marginal percentage of the residents. why can we not all live our lives in peace, and mind our own business!!

belfast samizdat said...

Where do you get the 3% figure? And why do you call it conflict? There used to be a community here. The behaviour of "students" has had an effect that amounts to "social cleansing". This is the new campus for the universities. It cost them nothing. It cost the taxpayer tens of millions in grants to landlords. It cost a thriving and bohemian community its existence.
The big lie that "it's only a tiny minority" has been put about for the last ten years. It's always been a majority of these people and everyone knows it, at least everyone in the Holylands.
The use of the word conflict implies some sort of proportionality,or, dare I say it, moral equivalence, as if there is conflict between the rapist and the victim. There are 100 residents left. Where did everybody go? No-one left willingly. People couldn't take it any more. Does it make sense to tell us that it's only a tiny minority? I find the very concept insulting to the remaining residents and everyone who's been forced to leave.
Good luck with your degree. Real students are the minority here.

Anonymous said...

Queen's were NOT "off" as you put it. If you knew anything about Queen's you would know that various schools and faculties have reading weeks on different dates in and around October. Queen's do not just take a week "off". It's a university, not a school.

Oh yeah, and where did you get the statistic claiming that "50% of Queen's students do not go to class"?

A more sweeping statement I have not heard.....

belfast samizdat said...

The "reading week" issue has died a death. To answer your question, I get the figure by virtue of being able to count. My course is one of the best in the UK. It has at least 160 undergraduates in each annual cohort.
On the compulsory induction day the lecture theatre is full. Subsequently it is half full, with the same faces every time. The all time low for a level 2 lecture is 34.
Level 3 suffers from similar problems such that some lecturers take the notes offline an hour after the lecture ends. This is of course futile as they can be obtained from other, genuine, students, or downloaded the night before. Some lecturers may well decide to not post them until the morning of the lecture. This has the unfortunate effect of punishing those who wish to prepare for the class beforehand.
Thus the attempt by universities to justify £3,000 tuition fees results in a serious and debilitating degradation of the support provided to real students because of the profitable presence of bogus students.