Banging My Head Against a Brick Wall: An Open Letter to the Rt Hon David Cameron MP

Subject: Banging My Head Against a Brick Wall: An Open Letter to the Rt Hon David Cameron MP

From: Stephen Wright

Date: 9 Jul 2015

"There is no value in anything until it is finished." Genghis Kahn ***

Rt Hon David Cameron MP

I am writing to request a full refund for tuition fees totalling £9,000 (plus interest) paid over a period of 3 years (2007-2010) to Loughborough University.

Rest assured that once I have received the full amount I will of course be happy to return/destroy my degree and relinquish all associated qualifications, namely a Bachelor of Science, Second Class Honours, Upper Division in Sport and Exercise Science.

The reasons that I am writing to you and not the minister of state for universities and science are as follows;

a) I'm scared he'll make me do another degree.
b) See above.

My reasons for the requested refund, like all good children's stories, make little to no sense, are unfeasibly long and confused and are based mainly in an irrational and ever growing sense of injustice and seething rage. Picture if you will "that guy" who resides in every pub the length and breadth of our good nation (I've often wondered if they are employed by the pub as a sort of control variable), they usually go by a cruel but accurate nickname like Mad Eye Micky or Angry Pete. The guy who sits in the same seat all night, silently drinking pint after pint of Ruddles, not for pleasure, but for purpose, staring blankly into the middle distance, mouthing unintelligible insults punctuated only by a blood curdling, crazed laugh. Seemingly driven mad by some inner force or simply by the hand he was dealt. Pictured it? Forgotten why? Good. Conditions are perfect.

I have just received another automated email, this time informing me that my application for the role of Sports Assistant at Loughborough University has been declined, I will "go no further in the process" and I should "not reply" to said email. Over the years I have studied these emails and have become somewhat of an expert, they are perfect in their way, the question dodging politician of the email world. They can often be as long as 6 or 7 sentences and yet by the time you get to the end you remember nothing about their content, it's like being greeted by a sweet smiling old lady, invited to join her inside her charming riverside cottage, politely offered iced tea then being told to fuck off, but ever so politely. You close the email dimly aware that you had no say in what happened and it didn't go well, but you can't remember why?

In case you are not aware, in this instance sports assistant means a leisure attendant or reccy. Important to be clear in a climate where job titles can so easily deceive. Among my current favourites are "tree surgeon" and "sandwich artist", just for the sheer ambition of it. I picture the aftermath of a horrific accident, "IS THERE A SURGEON ON THE PLANE?!?! THIS MAN NEEDS AN URGENT TRACHEOTOMY!" Whilst in row 23b at the back of the plane a tree surgeon slowly removes his name badge, stuffs it into his pocket and sinks lower and lower into his seat. Where was I? Ah yes, sports assistant duties would include the cleaning and maintaining of facilities, the setting up and taking down of sports equipment, the taking of bookings and basic reception work. Nothing overly taxing on the surface, but as with any job that deals with the [deep breath] general public, it has it's challenges ... take it from someone who has done this and similar roles for 10 years, clocking on at 6am (with a 50% risk of hangover) to scrub toilets and litter pick, before lugging gymnastic equipment around and finishing a 15 hour day on a council bar at the angriest wedding of the century is roughly as glamorous as it seems, but what it lacks in glamour it makes up for in honesty and physicality. "Character building" I believe is the term or "shit on toast" if you'd prefer.

The dreaded "iced tea" email is a disappointment that nearly everyone on the planet has or will go through, as the old saying goes; "There are only two certainties in life, the iced tea email and PPI phone calls".

But I am more than disappointed, I feel let down. Not by this rejection specifically, this is just the latest of countless, (probably for the best as I would hate to know the exact number) the tip of the 'shitberg' so to speak, but it brings the problem nicely into focus. I am a graduate of Loughborough University and in fact met all of the essential and desirable criteria, this does not and should not, guarantee me this or any other interview, neither should the 10 years of experience in the leisure industry that I hold, or the industry recognised qualifications and training (ok I'm just being a twat now) but you get the idea. At £14,000 per annum on an evening and weekend shift rota, it's hardly a six figure job offer for a beer and beach tester in Hawaii, but a job is a job as they say.

Moreover the role asked for precisely the skills, experience and training that I hold and so I felt reasonably hopeful that going through the 3,987600th application form for this and similar job roles would be worth it. Once more dragging enthusiasm up from my boots to my typing finger tips, summoning every drop of interest that I could muster I set about my task. Putting on that strange tone of voice/writing that you keep in reserve for applications and interviews, the one that seems to hint that for you to be given a chance to wear the proud uniform of this institution would satisfy some kind of deep set prideful conviction to v-mop sports hall floors with a spring in your step and start every morning shift with a full rendition of the national anthem before swearing allegiance to the leisure industry. I picture the slow walk from the building on my last day, accompanied by a 300 gun salute, met by my manager at the door "your badge son, you may keep your side-arm, but for you the war is over" We both salute and I walk into the sunset carrying the squash court brush over my shoulder.

The issue here is not that I didn't get invited to interview or get this or any of the other countless jobs or even studentships that I have applied for, as I say I am not alone, the world doesn't owe me a favour, and I am fortunate enough to be working as I apply. The issue is where the last 4 years of applying for nye on any job, as a graduate, places the value of my degree. If the very institution from which I earned the degree, an institution that presumably holds records of my numerous applications for work there, repeatedly ignores applications and refuses to offer any feedback, from a purely selfish perspective, what is my opinion to be? I am not for one minute suggesting that every person with a degree from Loughborough University should be ushered into work there. I am simply calling for honesty and responsibility on the part of universities. I made a mistake going to university, the qualification that was sold to me for £9000, the qualification that I attained over 3 years, has no value. Not anywhere I have tried to redeem it at least. I'm the guy who purchased an x-box from ebay only to unwrap it to find that he had in fact purchased a box, that looked like a games console, but was, and this is crucial, "x"-less.

I have not forgotten that is a choice to go to university, but the dice (for me at least) was loaded. The whole of my educational journey was set up for that very particular outcome. I was guided into a choice with a -£18,000 consequence at a time when I genuinely believed Skol Super to be fit for human consumption. I don't think unequipped covers it.

I should be clear, my ambitions are fairly standard, the last time I felt a burning desire to be richer was when I needed the Everton badge in "shiny" to complete my Merlin football sticker book and my funds had been pilfered by excessive purchasing of ice pops. Similarly I don't want to change the world, with the exception of a few things here and there, Kanye West for example and maybe the One Show format. But I do think there is an obligation for transparency.

My disappointments stem from many sources, many are self inflicted, some though are not. The usual arguments levelled at universities do not particularly interest me but are perhaps worth noting. The fact that, in spite of paying £3000 per annum, I received minimal, largely apathetic and monotone tuition*, that I was kept at arms length from the many world leading facilities that were advertised and never did manage to attain the Holy Grail of finding and withdrawing a book that I needed, at the time I needed, from the labyrinth that is the University library (my last gasp attempts of dressing like Indiana Jones and recruiting Jonathan Ke Quan and Kate Capshaw to help me failed miserably and only added to the debt**).

My argument centres on altogether more shaky ground; it is a culture of misinformation that leads people such as me to believe that a degree holds any value in certain industries. I choose my words carefully here because I do not, in turn, want to misrepresent my views on higher education. I believe that education of any form is of inherent value to a society, a degree in 12th century needlework is of equal value to a degree in medicine for example, maybe not a view you would express in a doctors waiting room having had an unfortunate incident with a claw hammer, but in a wider context, for the enrichment of society and humanity, it is a view that I believe holds water. Genuine research and education at any level is of course a good thing. You can tell there is going to be a 'but' here can't you ... BUT .... These ideals are currently cowering in a far corner of my brain, they've barred the door, they're out of arrows and there's a Genghis Kahn horde of firing synapses hammering to get at them. This horde feed on reality, not ideals, and they got big.

Again, I want to choose my words carefully because I don't want to come across as something that I am not. I wasn't, for example, under any illusion that upon gaining a degree in PE (sorry sport scientists) that I would stroll out of student halls to a paparazzi style gang of prospective employers begging for my signature. The world doesn't owe me or anybody else a favour. Just like in any other industry, you start at the bottom and work your way up. It's just the starting at the bottom bit for me that has been an issue. I am not lazy or work shy (settle down colleagues and employers at the back!), to my knowledge I do not have a superiority or inferiority complex (I'll give friends and family a chance to wipe from the screen whatever they've just spat out) I simply feel that the three years I spent at university were ill advised and without value (to me and many others), every year I see shiny new buildings and facilities spring up from the dirt of campuses around the country and thousands of young, intelligent people leave town, a little poorer and looking slightly confused. A vast majority are victims of a mugging, a most subtle, middle class and long winded mugging, and with tuition fees growing by the year an ever profitable one at that.

I enjoyed University ... you weren't expecting that were you ... I made lifelong friends and changed for the better as a person. It's not until you are thrown into the mix with people from all walks of life that you realise how small your vantage point was before. I am friends with people now who I would never have been before and I gained many things that are far more valuable than any job could be. Could I have done it without university? Probably. Do I regret going? Not entirely. But my point is this, I read through the same rhetoric year after year from universities, "5th best in the UK", "1st for sport", "11th for standard of living" (I think Loughborough was dragged down in that particular league table mainly because of the smell from F-Block in Harry French circa 2007) and it angers me that more and more people around the UK are paying more and more to Universities in tuition fees and for what? I would be +£20,000 now and presumably in the same situation or better from a career or financial perspective (given that I have no career or finances I think this is a fair assumption).

For some the system works, they gain valuable technical knowledge that aids them in their work, or go on to break new barriers in their chosen discipline, or simply unlock and widen horizons in themselves, but as with any such rigid institution, there are many that fall between the cracks. University alumni magazines are full of success stories, but of equal value are the unheard voices, those voices that may just fill in the rest of the tapestry.

This outburst must seem confused and unclear; this is because I am both of those things. I have purposefully not edited it in anyway, mainly because I have already met my yearly quota for thinking. I feel guilty for writing it, there are far bigger problems around me and in the world. I am neither embittered nor pessimistic in truth, I will continue to widen my horizons and apply for work in and out of the sport and leisure sector. I will carry on writing, learning, forming and re-forming my opinions and I will always be an advocate for the good that universities can do and a proud defender of Loughborough for the great town that it is. Perhaps there is no greater metaphor for the place of academia in the wider world than a Friday night in echos nightclub. On second thoughts, perhaps there is.

I don't think I am out of line saying that I am indicative of a generation (ignore the lack of superiority complex alluded to earlier) that feels a little detached, treading water, seething with anger at no one in particular.

A backdrop of austerity measures, cut-backs and redundancies reasoned away against a global financial crash in terminology that means nothing to anyone outside of the oxford university economics department. "There's no fish fingers tonight kids, I'm afraid the net worth of our shares have fallen on the FTSE index and all value driven assets are being ring fenced by an independent overseas investor with the hope of an imminent shareholder takeover ...." ... "OH BUT DAAAAD!?!?!"

I think history will remember this generation with pity, there wasn't the real hardship of striking unions (ok maybe a bit) or the abject horror of world wars (ok a bit I said!) and so any complaints seem feeble or 'sour grapey' (you're welcome English language), but there wasn't much to celebrate for many either, in-between days, that's what they'll call them. Perhaps my title is inaccurate on reflection, If I were banging my head on a brick wall, I reckon I'd have got through by now.

It is perhaps mere coincidence that this very morning I received a letter from my university, because of course for now at least I am an alumni (I never heard back when I asked if they wanted me to speak at one of their alumni balls??). Either that or there is in fact a God and he just happens to be the massive bastard that evidence suggested. The letter, shaped like a coffee cup, enquired as to whether I would be willing to give up one coffee a month in order to donate to the university. Funding raised would provide sports equipment (I'm sure I paid hundreds of pounds for athletic union fees, facility hire and kit for the privilege of playing for the university in my time there?), books and refurbishing common rooms. It all sounds like a noble cause that I would be glad to contribute to, if only someone would lend me a few quid?….Prime Minister?

Many thanks for reading and I look forward to your response,

Mr Stephen Wright (BSc)

P.S. If I have achieved nothing else but to be the first person to send a letter to the Prime Minister that opens with a Genghis Kahn quote, then I shall die a happy man.

* I would like to exclude Dr Alan Bairner from this grossly sweeping statement, his lecturing
was personal, funny and informative and he displayed two rare qualities