The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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5:32pm on Wednesday, 7th December, 2016:
Anecdote
We had a visit day today, which is the name given to those occasions upon which prospective undergraduates visit the university to be shown around and interviewed. It's not the official name, which is New This Term and therefore unmemorable (I think it may begin with A); everyone calls it visit day, though.
I was a student guide for visit days when I was an undergraduate (as was my wife) (yes, your conclusions are correct). Back then, everything was run with military precision by a former member of the armed forces. Nevertheless, somehow it never went to time.
It's the same today. Some people take longer to do what they're supposed to do than they should take, and everything gets knocked out of whack. The organisers know this, of course, so will say that we have 15 minutes to interview prospective students when we really have 20, or say that a sample talk or demonstration should take 20 minutes when it really could be stretched to 25. Unfortunately, we all know the times we've been given are short by five minutes, so some of us compensate by taking those extra minutes anyway — and then overrunning on them. As a result, everything is a mad dash at the end and some students barely make it in time back to catch the bus to take them to the train station.
I expect it'll still be the same 30 years from now, if attending university is still a thing.
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Copyright © 2016 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).