November 2012


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There is a lot more to university than school work. A fact that we were all perhaps a little too aware of at one point or another during our careers at UWI, St. Augustine. But no matter how we balanced school work with campus and off-campus life, we all experienced The University of the West Indies in our own unique way. This was especially true as the Faculty of Social Sciences is so diverse. Together we were postgraduate, undergraduate, evening students and day students. Some of us were just out of high school while others were returning to school after having worked and we were all reading for degrees as varied as accounting and social work. In my case, I came directly out of high school and went right into a BSc Programme in Psychology.

I arrived at the St. Augustine campus late on August 27, 2009. I had left Jamaica in pursuit of regional exposure, independence and of course there was the legend of Carnival. And now at the end of it all, I can say that I have gained significant experiences around regional identity, independence, and Carnival was like nothing I had ever experienced. Truth is that I was expecting a day or two of partying but I had no idea that what I was going to see was something like one big vibration that seemed to run through the nation.

I can also say that before coming to St. Augustine, the other Caribbean islands were mostly just names on a map. Yes, there was a flag and the name of an important leader learned in primary school, which may have been supported by some vague rumours and stereotypes, but there was very little real understanding or connection. Being here at St Augustine has brought the map to life. It has showed me that The University of the West Indies is truly a regional institution and that the region itself is more connected than I had ever thought. For example, on my first day wandering around on Campus, lost of course, I bumped into a Jamaican-Barbadian friend who had transferred from her Barbadian high school into my Jamaican school in fourth form.

In my third year, I was taught by someone who grew up in Port of Spain and who became the best of friends with my aunt who originally came from Fyzabad in South. They met when they lived together on the same block in Irvine Hall at Mona. One of my closest friends on hall here in St Augustine was an Antiguan whose father had been on the Mona Campus at the same time as my father.

I was also amazed at how close the Antiguan accent sounded to my Jamaican one and how some of the islands seem to have the same foods but with different names or foods with the same name that were completely different. Trinidad and Tobago began seeping into my way of talking. For the first time I felt a connection to the Caribbean as a whole and there wasn’t even a cricket match happening at the time.

For many young people like myself, coming to St Augustine was also a very good way to escape our parents’ house. There was real independence here. There was no one to act as an intermediary between us and the world. At university, if a problem arose, we were the ones who had to write, phone and inevitably go to the administration building to sort it out. Our assignments were really and truly our own business now. Our time was ours to manage. And we managed with varying levels of success as we took on the non-academic learning curves associated with the independence of university life.

But while all of the above was memorable, St Augustine will always stand out in my mind for something quite different. If asked what was most striking about UWI St Augustine, I would have to say it was learning how to learn. At St Augustine, I felt an invitation to learn. This invitation was issued in a number of ways. In tutorials we were asked to debate and relate theories to real life questions. Some lecturers would stop class and go row by row asking persons to give their thoughts, opinions and examples of how the subject matter related to real life. In some mid-terms we had to read what appeared to be never-ending paragraphs filled with hypothetical situations before carefully selecting an answer. I will confess, in year one, after spending years in an education system where sitting quietly and taking notes was the epitome of a good student, I was not enthusiastic and certainly not pleased when at eight o’clock in the morning, or just after lunch, tutors were demanding very active participation. Nonetheless, over my time at UWI, I came to see that what my much-resented tutor was trying to teach us was how to learn, how to think critically.

In the psychology department, the importance of these skills was driven home in many classes where we were told the cautionary tale of the pseudo science of phrenology which postulated that a person’s character could be deciphered by the bumps and indentations of their skull; for example, a bulge over the right eyebrow may have indicated that the owner of that skull was macocious. There where academic journals chronicling this theory and it was a widely accepted school of thought. What we came to understand is that a little critical thinking and active learning may have put a stop to these ideas much earlier.

As I stand now at the end, I feel that I am not so much leaving UWI with a piece of paper to present when applying for a job, but with a whole host of skills and experiences applicable to the real world. The most important of which is the ability to learn: that essential tool with which we will be able to find a way to deal with anything that may come our way in life.

I hope we don’t forget all the unexpected and expected things we acquired at university; be it critical thinking or good friends. We took a lot of exams and sat through more lectures than we may have liked but all those other things we took on board along the way during our own unique journeys through UWI can help us through life. Many of us have created our own support networks that we can now integrate into those which we had prior to coming to UWI. We have learned new skills, we have developed ideas, we have grown, and we will take all this with us as we move on to negotiate our futures in this ever shrinking world. So I say thank you, to our teachers, and tutors, and mentors here at UWI, St Augustine for the instruction, and the guidance, and the fellowship, the division of Facilities Management for maintaining the beautiful Campus grounds. To Student Services, the Academic Support/Disabilities Liaison Unit and all the various offices and services that helped us navigate this Campus. And to our families and friends who supported, and encouraged us, or who just gave us that room to grow.

We might not have always shown it but we appreciated what you did.