Shilling for the uni
March 14th, 2008 at 00:14
As I’m a high-flying successful celebrity, I’ve been asked to contribute to a new journal that’ll be given to prospective students at my university, to try to encourage them to choose my uni over other (better) universities. I was asked to write about my experiences on the course and how it has led to my involvement in wider politics and so on. And because I’m running a bit thin on the ground for content at the moment, (“Alistair Darling looks like a badger” has been done by everyone), I thought I’d share it with you. Because the weak gags are worth repeating, obviously.
I’ve been studying International Relations and Globalisation for three years now, but I’ve kept it a big secret. It’s not because I’m ashamed that I’ve chosen an arts degree over something weighty and scientific, like physics or homeopathy, but because I’ve discovered that the second the phrase “international relations and globalisation†is mentioned to an outsider, it’s met with a blank stare and a look of bewilderment. Nobody really knows what Globalisation is – not even the academics, who seem to spend half their lives arguing over what it is.
So I’ve been telling people that I’m studying “politicsâ€. Which it sort of true, but is also a horrible lie. In other words, the course is setting me up perfectly for a career in politics.
The course is excellent, as if you’re the sort of political junkie who stays up late to watch election results programmes or can name more members of the shadow cabinet than you can professional football players, then “revision†is your normal behaviour anyway. Even if you’re not as phenomenally boring as I am, you’ll still think it’s excellent. Why? Because International Relations is about tackling issues.
The questions debated in seminars are not abstract mathematical problems or reading too much into the alliteration Shakespeare used – students of international relations are tasked with solving real political dilemmas. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the legality of the Iraq war, the role of multi-national companies in the international system – in the last three years I’ve been discussing them all, presumably because the politicians have got so fed up and frustrated with everyone in the middle east fighting, they’ve delegated it down to undergraduates for them to fix for them.
The other great thing about the course is that it empowers you to participate in the greater political debate in a way that you actually feel like what you’re saying matters. When you express your political opinions, people will actually be under the impression that you know what you’re talking about, whether you actually are or not. I’ve been writing about politics on the internet for a couple of years now, and according to one poll, have the 251st best political blog in the UK – just one spot below the disgraced Jeffrey Archer, of all people. It turns out that lots of influential people have read my blog, and so I may have ever-so-slightly, indirectly influenced major policy decisions… which is a scary thought.
So come and study International Relations and you could maybe one day be as rich and successful as I wish I was!
I’m not sure I’m selling the course quite as well as they’d like.
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