Students who will go to university talk about what they expect and want from the experience.
IMOGEN CASEBOURNE
I see my deGREe as something which will make me more perceptive① as opposed to improving my chances of getting a job. Nowadays no one seems to want to broaden their minds. I do. Obviously I'd want to earn enough to keep me above the breadline. But I wouldn't mind doing a boring job to save money to travel. Being unemployed doesn't worry me. It'll be quite strange going away. I've never been taken away and put in a totally new environment. It should be interesting. I'm leaving my boyfriend behind. I intend to write to him a lot and see him in the holidays. But I don't want to be rushing home at weekends. I hope university changes me. I've experimented with different ideas and ways of doing things already. I see university as the next step.
ANDREY KOTLARCZYK
I told someone I was going to Oxford and he said, "Are your parents rich then?" Other friends say, "I hope you still speak to us when you come back." I don't worry about being a boy from a comprehensive② school at Oxford. At the interview all the public school people were in one corner and we were in the other. But I think once everybody knows each other the barriers will break down. My college is mixed, with a nine-to-seven ratio of men to women—pretty good, I thought. It adds a bit of flavour; it tends to make it more friendly. I don't think university is going to change me as much as it could if I'd had a really strict upbringing. Hopefully after three years at university I will have matured. I'll be more worldly. Most of all I'm looking forward to meeting lots of rich girls! If you don't have a good time at university, when can you have a good time?
Notes:①perceptive: 观察敏锐的 ②comprehensive: 综合的
by Susan Morris and Alan Stanton
