KEITH T. DENNETT | New South | CONTACT
A local student is having an existential crisis this morning after questioning why they’re bothering to study a $50,000 communications degree.
Having left her childhood home of Quilpie to study a Bachelor of Media at Betoota’s prestigious University of Western Queensland, Shauna Shaner (22) was initially enthused at the prospect of living amongst the bright lights of Betoota, heading to Uni Games and getting a fancy sounding degree on her resume.
But now laying on an IKEA mattress in a cupboard sized bedroom in a student housing block, Shauna was forced to pry open her laptop to listen in one of four “compulsory” lectures she had to attend this week.
Now in her second year of the degree, Shauna told The Advocate that so far the whole course had been a pretty big waste of time, as cost cutting measures meant every assignment was “a group presentation” and most of the course work was delivered online with a grainy video recorded from some lecturer’s kitchen table.
“It’s a dumb degree if I’m honest, the whole thing is totally impractical,” said Shauna , as she half watched the lecture whilst shopping online for a new pair of shoes.
Completely bored by today’s talk on Marshal McLuhan’s media theory, Shauna ran some quick numbers on the cost of her degree to prove to The Advocate how much money she was lighting on fire.
“If I divide the cost of my degree by the number of these online lectures, this wasted hour of my life is costing future me $180. Like what a rip?!”
Asked if she’d consider dropping out of the degree to get some practical skills at TAFE, Shauna admitted she just planned to see her whole degree through.
“Nah I’ll do the three years, there’s a chance I’ll get to go to the World Uni Games with the lawn bowls team if I hang around campus next year. I might as well do something worth remembering from Uni.”
