WOMEN AT UNIVERSITY

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 153, 25 March 1937, Page 6

WOMEN AT UNIVERSITY

They Should Not Live At I lonic II They Want To Do Well

RESIDENTIAL COLLEGES NEEDED

THERE is a section of University students tn New Zealand whose slogan is, ‘ No swot before Easter. They are the athletes in training for the annual tournament, the “freshers" and the hardened pass-scrapers. But there is another section, well-meaning, which never manages to study at all. It includes mostly women students who live at home. Hampered and bound by innumerable subordinate loyalties,' they never know the full flavour of university life, and even in study are at a disadvantage against the boarders in residential colleges.

HAVE you ever tried to concentrate on French philology against the combined distractions ot a gramophone, two sisters quarrelling ami mother’s voice from tlie kitchen relating spicy gossip about your sec-ond-best boy friend? If so, did tlie philology benefit? How much more did you know ot the growth of the French language when you hurried off, an hour later, to dross for an afternoon tea party. Not enough, possibly, to push you over the dread forty-line at Hie university degree examinations in November.

But these are tlie conditions tindei which’ many New Zealand work—and sometimes succeed. Imy brought forth emphatic condemnation recently at. the conference at Adelaide for New Zealand and Australian professors where n unanimous vote supported the Women’s Dean of tlie Lmversitv of Queensland in her contention that all university centres should provide adequate accommodation for women Even city girls living within easy distance of tlie lecture rooms should spend at least part of their time in an ofiieial residential college, she said, otherwise home ties severely limited their contribution to the progress of HMr Alma Mater.

EVERY right-minded student believes that the creamiest wisdom and tlie frothiest fun are to be found at that hall of learning to which it _ has pleased her father to send her Nevertheless. many people feel that the traditional and unique atmosphere surrounding tlie academic centres in the Old World is most faithfully reproduced in the two southern colleges o£ this Dominion. A. greater proportion of their srudents are full-time students, able to take u fuller part in the life of the university, and undoubtedly their residential colleges foster esprit, de corps and willingness to servo among undf graduates.

(SUFFICIENT women’s residential colleges In the North Island are, of course, merely visionary at present. But tlie women’s dean at Queensland would have every girl, no matter where her home might be, living n a univeisitv house. If her remarks have no material outcome in the estnblishmen of more hostels in New Zealand, at least they might persuade parents who have undergraduate ehiWren at home to adapt the daily routine slightly to fit in with their studies.

First consider conditions in tlie university hostels. There is a very large degree of freedom granted, but rules for coming home at reasonable time (it. night are enforced. Then, at certain periods of the day and night, "silence hours” are observed, when students not working are required to go about their business quietly.

But the most imiwrtant condition, of which others arc but symptoms, is the atmosphere of study and competition. All the boarders have a common aim—to pass an examination. And so is built up a sectarian publie opinion that is an incentive to work.

Similarly, public opinion leads them into serving on committees, taking part in athletics, meeting each other in serious discussion, and generally living to the full the specialised type of life which a university offers. Harried Student at Home. TN contrast, the student living at home has innumerable difficulties with which to contend. The men are better off, because they are practically free of domestic duties and, moreover, tire taken seriously by family and friends. Only a small minority of men students have no intention of following some career after they leave college; but women do not always take up higher education with single minds. Oil tlie whole, they are less irked by “living on the parents” if they cannot find employment and, of course, are always liable to be sidetracked into marriage. Therefore their scholastic success is frequently treated as desirable hut unessential—a habit of mind in the public which is strengthened by the carefree dabblings of a small section of girls who flock to the university in search of “culture’’—and a bright time. Tluis, tlie woman student, more conditioned to pleasuring and frivolity than a man. requires the stimulus of public opinion to start and keep her working willingly .and in earnest. Whereas at home, so many and varied are the calls upon her that she Ims scant time left for study, let alone for sharing- ill other university activities. The session slips on, witli a mounting pile of work waiting to 1* crammed indigestibly at the end of the year. No one outside tlie university—and not half tlie students within it —realises what exactly academic work entails in energy and application, if it is to be of lasting value. Systematic Work is Necessary. A FTER all. university is not just a prolonged holiday from routine. The most efficient work in practically every walk of life is done to a timetable, not by inspiration, ami the student who is her own master will not go far wrong if she organises time as rigidly as if she were working in an office under an unsympathetic manager. She should draw up a schedule of work. As well as attendance at lectures, taken for granted, there should be so much time allotted to study, at stated, definite hours, and so much leisure for other activities.

To keep firmly and constantly to a self-imposed timetable requires discipline of a high order. And, unfortunately. many students oilier university at an irresponsible age, when they are least capable of governing tliemslves. Hence the Importance of residential colleges, which replace lite rod of the schoolmuster with the intangible rod of public opinion. lienee, too, the necessity for parents and families to co-operate with students living at home in the efficient, organisation of work. Every student should have a “den,” even if it is merely a itedroom. where study will be uninterrupted. And girl students particularly should cot be available for domestic, social or other duties during the time they have set aside for university work. Dances and very late nights are best avoided except at the week ends. Only by means of adapting institution rules to home life can the average young university student cover the syllabus comfortably, thoroughly, without fluster nt the last. Regular attendances nt lectures alone will not ensure a degree, nor will spasmodic “swot” lead to anything more than ultimate mediocrity. Organise both yourself and yonr environment on business lines. When you come to think of it. why should yon take less trouble to benefit, from training that costs, you money, titan the business girl takes to benefit from experience for which she is paid?