A to Z 2025 – Qualifications

I confess I am not a great fan of autobiographies that begin at the beginning and follow a temporal path up to the present day – not that the person might not have some interesting stories, facts and opinions strung on their necklace, but it just doesn’t appeal as a structure. On the other hand, in my last, extra year at school in Oxford, retaking an A-level and adding a couple more, I was allowed out of school on my recognisance and saw a fascinating Exhibition at the Modern Art Gallery. The Artist had laid out and photographed every single possession of a single person – for example, all the cutlery was laid out in one shot, all the shoes in another. This more thematic approach appeals more and although I am not arranging the objects which I have chosen to tell my story in chronological order, I hope that my writing will be sufficiently interesting to keep your interest Dear Reader, and that on the journey from A to Z, you will assemble an impression of my life and who I am…

Qualifications

A great deal of emphasis is placed on Qualifications – usually obtained by taking an exam of some kind, but certainly in Britain, the push, at a certain time in the past, to get students to University, may be seen, cynical as it may be, to have postponed the entrance of people into the ranks of the unemployed and as a result, many students took courses of dubious value in getting a job and in any case, at the present time, even a “useful” degree is no guarantee of employment. Of course obtaining a qualification at university or even at a lower college, is not just about getting the qualification but getting an “education” which is different thing altogether! Education does not come from the academic facts that can be subject to examination, it is often invisible, perhaps even to the person who has received it – maybe apparent only after some subsequent life experiences. It was this principle that led the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin to promote a BA to an MA upon application after three or four years out in the world following graduation. Whilst many employers might discount the value of such a qualification, it reflects that academic work is enhanced by being subject to a period of application in the real world.

This idea was only one of those I imbibed from my father (a senior Lecturer in Mechanical Engineering at Oxford see here) – often whilst he washed up and I dried up! Another of his ideas led me to choose a strange (in my school’s view) selection of A-Levels – I studied Geography, Physics, and English and although the school allowed this, under protest, I had to take an additional Maths qualification. It was of course, tricky doing a single science subject instead of the usual Physics, Chemistry and Biology, but as a result of my father’s thinking, I did not want to be pigeon-holed as either an Arts or Science type. I did pass all three A-Levels albeit with too low a grade in Geography to obtain the place I wanted to read Geography at university. Even that choice of Geography was because I saw it as a sort of modern equivalent to “the Classics” – but with greater relevance, encompassing the real world, physical, economic and social. So I stayed on at school for another year, to retake Geography but I also added Art and Geology A-Levels and completed them in the year. Most of my cohort had left and I only had 11 hours of timetable lessons – hence my freedom to roam to Oxford’s many museums and art galleries, or even go sketching. Physics gave me enough grounding in science to be able to comprehend the world of science, English gave me a love of poetry in particular, (see my Murals on the “M” post where I put my knowledge of WB Yeats to use!), I still consider my view of the world to be that of a geographer (and geologist) and as I have described in my “A” post, I am something of an artist.

If asked whether I would like to live at any other time in history, I would say perhaps somewhere between the 17th and 19th centuries – providing I could be an aristocratic polymath such as Sir Joseph Banks. There was so much to be discovered about the world and polymaths were free to make links (and advances) between many branches of science – astronomy, zoology, chemistry and biology – so exciting. I still believe that schools and universities force students to specialise too early and that we should perhaps have Departments of Poltmathmatics designed to foster connection between different disciplines.

I have never once been asked to provide my qualifications in the form of exam certificates, wich is partly because I have rarely applied for the sort of jobs where that might be required but also because employers are mostly inclined to take your CV at face value My current employers didn’t even ask to see my CV but took my having set up and run a Frozen Yoghurt Shop on my own, as evidence enough that I was suitable for the job. I continue to take the odd test to prove I have studied something, like the certificate at the top of the page but I also find, ever more as time goes on, that the things in which I excel are the result of the accretion of life experience rather than academic study. I find myself fluent on the computer, writing, spreadsheets, presentation, graphic work, and drafting skills, with hardly any formal study (although I did once do an Advanced European Computer Driving Licence lol) but rather continuous learning across many jobs. I like to say that I have forgotten more jobs than many people have had – that I was an early adopter of the idea that we will all have to retrain every five or so years for new job opportunities. Has there been a downside? Well, I haven’t made a lot of money, but I have got by, I don’t have much of a pension, but I get by although I csn’t see myself fully retiring anytime soon, however, I have, with very few exceptions, had enormous enjoyment and job satisfaction! I am happy, on the whole, to still keep a foot in the working world, to apply my skills to new challenges and to meet new people through work…