{"id":164,"date":"2017-06-01T08:16:54","date_gmt":"2017-06-01T07:16:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/?p=164"},"modified":"2017-05-31T11:26:46","modified_gmt":"2017-05-31T10:26:46","slug":"a-fresher-at-fifty-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/a-fresher-at-fifty-2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Fresher at Fifty"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Occasional Diary of a Mature Postgraduate Student at Newcastle University\u2019s Children\u2019s Literature Unit<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Jennifer Shelley<\/em><\/p>\n

Episode two: an Ancient Monument<\/strong><\/p>\n

Driving to the station to catch the train to Newcastle University last September my mind went back to 1984 when I was starting university for the first time. Back then, my mum and dad drove me from Dundee to Edinburgh, where I was to spend four years studying English literature \u2013 and making friends that I\u2019m still close to today.<\/p>\n

Now, however, my mum\u2019s sadly no longer with us, and rather than being an 18-year-old excited about leaving home for the first time, I\u2019m 50 years old, married, and living in the Perthshire countryside with my husband, greyhounds and chickens.<\/p>\n

But the me of today still has a few things in common with that eager teenager: for one thing, my taste in music hasn\u2019t changed much \u2013 David Bowie is blasting out of the car\u2019s CD player, just as he was back in the 1980s, although back then it would have been a cassette player. And the 50-year-old me was also excited about starting a new degree, although a bit nervous about what it would entail.<\/p>\n

\"Jen
Jen in her halls room back in the 80s<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Even getting to this point had been a bit of a journey: having decided to apply to do an MLitt in children\u2019s literature<\/a>, one of the first steps was pulling together the information to prove I met the entrance requirements. Essentially what I needed was a 2:1 or higher in a related subject, so that should have been tickety-boo: but I hadn\u2019t reckoned with my great age.<\/p>\n

The application form required \u2018transcripts\u2019, by which it meant a documentation that showed all the courses I had taken \u2013 and the marks achieved \u2013 in my undergraduate degree. I had my degree certificate, but had never even heard of transcripts.<\/p>\n

A call to my alma mater \u2013 the University of Edinburgh \u2013 confirmed that they could send me an academic statement, but the kind young man on the other end of the phone explained it might take some time. \u2018You see, our records don\u2019t go back that far, so we\u2019ll have to dig it out of the archives,\u2019 he said. Yes, it seems there is a room somewhere in Edinburgh University filled with big books containing the details of past students \u2013 and to retrieve mine would involve someone physically going to the room and wading through these tomes and taking a copy. This process was set in motion, and when the document finally arrived, it turned out to be merely confirmation of my first degree and overall result. The ever-helpful and patient postgraduate admissions staff at Newcastle confirmed that this was okay \u2013 they are happy to be flexible with mature students, it seems \u2013 so the application progressed, and ultimately was successful.<\/p>\n

Arriving at the university campus in all its freshers\u2019 week pomp also brought back memories, although there were of course some differences: this time, I was (sadly) largely disregarded by the eager young students peddling leaflets about societies, or offering cut-price beers or nightclub entry to people who looked like they might be freshers. \u2018I\u2019m a student too,\u2019 I screamed (but silently).<\/p>\n

After the process of registration was completed \u2013 one member of staff kindly confirmed I wasn\u2019t quite the oldest she\u2019d seen that day \u2013 I had an initial meeting with my supervisor, Lucy Pearson<\/a>. More of an informal chat, we discussed my areas of interest and she recommended some initial reading. She also reminded me of events set up to welcome postgraduates, including a get-together (with quiz!) held by the Children\u2019s Literature Unit<\/a>, and a drinks reception organised by the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The latter, I confess, was an eye-opener: chatting with a couple of recent graduates about to embark on PhDs, I enquired about their subject areas, and realised I didn\u2019t even understand what they were. What on earth was ecocriticism, for example (when I found out I immediately started wondering if I could apply it to Elinor M Brent-Dyer\u2019s Chalet School books \u2013 and why not?).<\/p>\n

All in all, it was a lot to take in, and a lot to think about \u2013 would this ancient monument be able to cope?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We really hope so! In the meantime, if you missed episode one of\u00a0<\/em>A Fresher at Fifty, read it here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Occasional Diary of a Mature Postgraduate Student at Newcastle University\u2019s Children\u2019s Literature Unit Jennifer Shelley Episode two: an Ancient Monument Driving to the station to catch the train to Newcastle University last September my mind went back to 1984 when I was starting university for the first time. Back then, my mum and dad … Continue reading A Fresher at Fifty<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6724,"featured_media":171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[24,92,91,20,42,93,41,90],"class_list":["post-164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-childrens-literature-unit","tag-ecocriticism","tag-elinor-m-brent-dyer","tag-fresher-at-fifty","tag-mlitt-in-childrens-literature","tag-school-of-english-literature","tag-studying-at-newcastle","tag-university-of-edinburgh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6724"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":168,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164\/revisions\/168"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}