May - What You Learn About College When You Are Not In Class

The term plagiarism is used to warn students not to copy other writers’ work without crediting the source. During my recent researches, I found that plagiarism comes from the Latin plagiare, and it means to kidnap. The lecturers don’t tell you that in college.

While we’ve been able to complete work including team assignments from home, given the Web, we miss the energy and fun of being in the college atmosphere. The Common Room in Dublin Business School was crowded at lunch and we often had stands for International Day or Mental Health Week –
always something to see or do and someone to chat with, swap timetable information. We could also have meetups to plan Journalism Society activities; for instance we got a tour of the RTE news studios. Now we sit in our individual rooms and phone or Zoom call.

Fitness – getting out early four mornings a week to walk to public transport and from there to college, with many flights of steps, really racks up the step count. Then while you’re in town you can wander off for lunch or raid a bookshop, or cover the Coroner’s Court or Climate March or any of the other assignments we were set. This spring I also headed off to
the beach for a few hours of photography assignment once a week. I had no trouble hitting ten thousand steps. Not so easy during lockdown, unless with artificial means like a stepping game on the Wii Fit Plus. I also wore a backpack to college, containing a netbook, library books, notepad, pens, lunch and other essentials. Believe me when I say this builds bone and muscle.

Get the work done early. This was my takeaway from previous college experiences and the motto, which I kept trotting out, probably to the annoyance of classmates, has proven its worth. How could I photograph a beach when it’s closed, and I am restricted to exercising briefly near my home once a day? How could the sports journalists cover matches and interview players, or the music journalists cover gigs, if all events are cancelled? How to cover a major conference
and is there a point to asking single mothers to chat about blind dating, if none of this can occur? While I didn’t need to learn this truth about getting the work done early, younger classmates who listened have told me I was so right.


Now I have had time at home, I was able to look around Moodle (the generic college program for student – lecturer interaction) and find aspects I never saw before because they are new since my first year and they weren’t required for the course. For instance, I can see how many books I borrowed from the college library this year (31) and what percentage my use is of the total class use. I borrowed over 50% of all the books borrowed by my cohort. During our first-year induction, the Librarian told us that students who borrowed more books got better results.

Evenings just aren’t the same. As I am now a day student, I would attend an evening lecture once or twice a month in Trinity College; or a talk in the Royal Dublin Society; or a book launch or photography exhibition. Sometimes I would have students or my husband with me but often not, as these are events where you don’t need to go with anyone. I helped the
other journalists to cover a Christmas party for the part-time students. The other evenings I would sit at my desk and work through assignments until 9.30pm, so a friend might call me and chat about something we were tackling. Now I work on books at my desk every night. While I can still contact friends, the social and learning aspect isn’t present.

Having learnt all this I heartily recommend taking a degree course. Ideally in a subject you love.




Since we are all still in lockdown, this month I am making The Prisoner In The Tower free.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prisoner-Tow...

https://amazon.com/Prisoner-Tower-Sho...

Grab the book free 23 – 26 May.
Any reader not in UK or US should use the Amazon.com link and the site will then offer to take them to their local store. All my books are in the Kindle Unlimited programme too. If you enjoy a book please leave a review, which helps other readers.

Watch my book trailers for my science fiction series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GadPp...

Visit my website:
www.clareobeara.ie
for news, puzzles, books, reviews and events. I blog here about disability access including my Top Ten places to visit. You can find my podcasts about Octocon on the News and Events page. I am also adding book covers to Pinterest boards after I review the books, so feel free to find me on Pinterest.