You’re trying to make your mark in society. You’re going to be taoiseach, so you get involved in the students’ union. You want to be a leading barrister, and so being auditor of the college debating society will look great on your CV. Or you think that you’ll have a better chance of getting ahead in the business world by running the college economics society.
Whatever happened to getting involved in student life not because of naked ambition but to meet new friends, to broaden your mind and to have new experiences? I’m disheartened by the amount of open self-interest in student life.
This has always been the case. This is a world that I and most of my fellow students see not as a place where students come together to defend our interests, but as a place where brats who want to be politicians play at being grown-ups in a manner that wholly shows them up as children.
Yes, of course, there are many decent, well-intentioned people in student politics who want to make a difference. They are, sadly, the minority. The dominant voices and forces are those who use the students’ union as a training ground for grown-up politics. Students, by and large, regard them in much the same vein they regard most politicians working in Ireland’s dysfunctional democracy. It is no wonder that turnout in student elections is so low.
In most instances, student politicians aren’t there to rock the boat or bring about any real reform or radical change. They’re there to serve their time, pay their dues and to gain some experience while their wages are paid by the students of their college. The Students’ Union, which consists of the students of the university, is merely their stepping stone to bigger and better things. Actually representing the students rarely seems to matter.
This is a not a hunch. I’ve heard – and chastised – many of my own friends for saying they got involved in a club, society, college newspaper, or students’ union because it is a “stepping stone” and because it will “look great on the CV”. Do they realise that that stepping stone is the life of their fellow students?
Students are increasingly told by guidance counsellors that their CV will stand out if they have been involved in college life.
It's a pretty repulsive attitude. If students get involved in college life not to better themselves but because they want to get ahead, they lose sight of the job at hand, focusing not on what they can give but on how the organisation can best serve their agenda and goals. Subterfuge and scheming become acceptable; passion for the job is destroyed, and creativity dissipates. Good work, guidance counsellors.
This column gives a voice to people concerned about education. Contributions welcome to education@irishtimes.com
