{"id":186,"date":"2017-07-10T11:45:49","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T10:45:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/?p=186"},"modified":"2017-07-10T11:45:49","modified_gmt":"2017-07-10T10:45:49","slug":"a-fresher-at-fifty-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/a-fresher-at-fifty-3\/","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 Three<\/strong><\/p>\n

Making Connections: 20th-Century Style<\/strong><\/p>\n

When I was studying for my first degree in the 1980s, I knew just one person with a computer, a final-year PhD student. Unlike the rest of us (lecturers included) who were still wedded to paper and pen \u2013 he was able to commit his wise analysis of the works of Christina Rossetti straight onto hard disk.<\/p>\n

Today, of course, it\u2019s a very different story: looking round the seminar room, the majority of students are tapping away on tablets or laptops, with only the occasional diehard making use of an actual paper notebook as opposed to a computerised one.<\/p>\n

The MLitt in Children\u2019s Literature<\/a>, for which I\u2019m studying as a mature student, is a research degree, largely involving one-to-one study and working on research essays with a supervisor. But learning about research methods is a requirement of the course, so we are obliged to study a module with the students who are undertaking the MA in English Literature<\/a> \u2013 hence being in the seminar room with other postgraduates.<\/p>\n

Learning about various aspects of research \u2013 such as how to formulate a dissertation topic and how to go about doing it \u2013 is obviously useful in itself, but for me, as a mature student, the best thing about doing this module has been the opportunity to meet other postgraduates on a sustained basis. This has been good socially \u2013 I was hugely heartened after the first seminar to be invited for a drink with a couple of other mature students \u2013 but also academically. As the first year has progressed, the MA group has coalesced into a largely friendly peer-support network, setting up a Facebook group to answer each other\u2019s last-minute panics and queries, and regularly meeting up in person to share works-in-progress, or just to let off steam.<\/p>\n

Being an MLitt student, I\u2019m in an insider-outsider position with this group, especially as I\u2019m still based at home in Scotland most of time. But I\u2019ve appreciated the opportunities (in class and out) to discuss ideas, talk about dissertation or essay intentions, and get input and fresh ideas from people with very different research interests to me (artificial intelligence, post 9\/11 fiction, and digital apps, to name but a few). It\u2019s also been rather nice to get the odd invitation via Facebook to student house parties \u2013 not something I thought would be happening at the age of 50.<\/p>\n

Widespread use of mobile devices (my laptop seems practically archaic by contrast), and social media apart, the actual process of academic study and research has also undergone a technological revolution in the last 30 years. I remember learning to use microfiche<\/a> to read archived copies of newspapers, and very fiddly it was too, but that was as good as it got; e-readers were the stuff of Tomorrow\u2019s World<\/em><\/a>, and journals and books were shelved on, well, actual shelves. Thinking about it, it\u2019s absolutely amazing today to be able to gain access to such tremendous amounts of information without even having to make a physical trip to the library \u2013 in effect, you have a library in your hands.<\/p>\n

Then again, sometimes the old ways can have benefits: just as attending the research methods seminars has led to valuable social and academic relationships, actually visiting the library can bring its own advantages. This was brought home to me in one of the earlier seminars, which included teaching about the university\u2019s special collections<\/a> and took place in the library itself. Sitting waiting for class to start, I idly turned over a letter that had been left on the table in front of me.<\/p>\n

Wait, surely that wasn\u2019t H.G. Wells\u2019 signature?<\/p>\n

Indeed it was. This was one a number of objects that library staff had strewn about to entice us \u2013 others included material from the Bloodaxe<\/a> archive, and (most excitingly for me) an early edition of one of my favourite books, Elinor M. Brent-Dyer\u2019s The School at the Chalet<\/em>. Lifting it up, feeling its heft, and smelling its smell, I felt a connection that stretched back to the first half of the last century \u2013 even the fastest broadband can\u2019t beat that.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/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 Three Making Connections: 20th-Century Style When I was studying for my first degree in the 1980s, I knew just one person with a computer, a final-year PhD student. Unlike the rest of us (lecturers included) who were still … Continue reading A Fresher at Fifty<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6724,"featured_media":188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,91,20,42],"class_list":["post-186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-20th-century-childrens-literature","tag-elinor-m-brent-dyer","tag-fresher-at-fifty","tag-mlitt-in-childrens-literature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186","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=186"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186\/revisions\/191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/childrensliteratureinnewcastle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}