The recent indecorous student scramble for €5 banknotes witnessed on the margins of the university campus as part of Freshers’ Week has raised many an eyebrow, with many commentators decrying the cheap publicity stunt and the ‘sheeple’ herd behaviour of the ‘participating’ students.
Personally, what intrigued me about the whole brouhaha was the degree of indignity that it actually gave rise to, as if the writing had not been on the wall for quite some time. Let me elaborate on this.
Anyone regularly rubbing shoulders with young people nowadays can vouch to the stifling financial ‘requests’ that they are regularly subjected to, simply to retain their current status among their peers or even to retain a hip status on social media channels.
For those young people not buttressed by their resourceful parents, just keeping ‘afloat’ in today’s world requires a regular injection of cash, whether it is to address basic needs, including expenses linked with daily commuting and subsistence or even education or for other ‘mundane’ purposes, including the purchase of branded clothing or footwear, the attendance to social events or even participation in international travel.
Radio shows topping the chart, invited on campus to headline Freshers’ Week to boot, regularly blare out competitions involving cheap cash handouts or even the settlement of pending bills on your behalf.
The prevailing message being peddled out there is that it is ok to shirk one’s responsibilities and to temporarily let others shoulder them, that the ‘get out of jail free’ card is perpetually available.
Money can come by easily, without resorting to any form of sacrifice or hard work... enter the deluge of gambling and betting adverts and outlets targeting young people which has materialised in recent years.
You cannot watch a football match nowadays in fact without being inundated with enticing calls to gamble, which doesn’t seem to irk many given the financial returns of the ‘industry’ and the occasional abuse victim respite service and ‘responsible gambling’ advert we put in for good measure.
No wonder it is so easy to manipulate a substantial swath (luckily, not all young people can be described through such a stereotype) of our youth by dangling euro notes in front of them and no wonder their expectations have become so utilitarian in recent years.
A few days prior to the incriminating incident during Freshers’ Week, an insightful interview was held by a Times of Malta journalist with a number of social media platform OnlyFans patrons, some of whom have even given up on accomplished, respected professions (that of an engineer, in one particular case) simply to earn substantially more money by engaging in pornography and semi-nudity with complete strangers online.
Such an interview is sobering indeed as it conveys the message that one should barely bother with proper education and training when shortcuts to ‘success’ do exist, albeit less dignified ones and that ‘success’ is largely to be measured by the girth of your pay cheque. When such a utilitarian approach is in vogue, laudable practices, such as reading, take second stage as they are viewed as a waste of time due to the lack of immediate return they provide.
The prevailing message being peddled out there is that it is ok to shirk one’s responsibilities- Alan Deidun
Dissertation proofreading services have, for instance, mushroomed in recent years, offering to spruce up your dissertation for a fee just in case your English diction does not make the cut. It is frankly inconceivable how university students reach such a stage without having a proper grasp of the English language, having to resort to mercenaries in order to deliver a readable dissertation, attributable to a lack of reading over the years.
Back in my days, young people embarking on a university education focused primarily on the course itself, painstakingly spending eons at the library on campus doing the spade work – research – to support quality assignments and dissertations, such that precious little time was left for anything less, including part-time jobs that most undergraduate students seem inclined to take up these days.
Value was still ascribed to original ‘research’ and the thrill of acquiring new knowledge and skills was still there... this seems to have been replaced by a rat race to complete one’s education through the shortest possible route so as to join the job market and increase one’s purchasing powers. How many university students nowadays do take the trouble, before disappearing from sight soon after their expensive graduations, to publish the outcomes of their dissertations so as to leave some tangible legacy behind?
Those courses which ensure employability and a quick financial return have seen an uptick of students in recent years, representing a course selection exercise based on practical utilitarianism rather than on an innate love for the subject at hand.
While highlighting potential opportunities to prospective candidates is commendable, pegging course selection directly to the financial returns this will guarantee drains the passion and fun out of education, study and research, morphing students into production bots, harking back to the early 1980s when a number of university courses were shafted as they were deemed not conducive to a productive society.
We normally try to solicit young people during informal Career Day talks to root for those courses and jobs where their heart lies rather than for the ones which pay the best (the ‘Find a job you enjoy doing and you will never have to work a day in your life’ refrain from Mark Twain springs to mind) but these seem to increasingly fall on deaf ears nowadays.
That is why I am frankly not surprised by the ‘€5 student scramble’, which is nothing more than a symptom of today’s distracted and alienated youth which, in turn, is just a symptom of our rabidly materialistic society.