We can deplore, with some American investigators, the harking back of some mature Americans to their college years as irretrievable golden years, and the consequent idolising of the way of life of the student, fully capable of life's enjoyments but not yet burdened with many responsibilities. We can dismiss as a sign of emotional immaturity the desire to return to a younger, less responsible self.

Still the fact remains that life at most American colleges has in greater measure than New Zealand student life ingredients which make it an enlarging of the student's experience in communal living. The students I met really had a feeling of integration into college community; it's not a feeling I'd expect to find among the majority of Vic students.

By Sweater to Long Island

Before studying in the United States. I had imagined (having seen, no doubt, the wrong films) that American college life was largely two all but contradictory things: a hectic social whirl cheer-leaders and co-eds in sweaters advertising Camels were the symbols and a sideline pursuit of earnest young capitalists; on the first rung of the ladder from smalltown apartment to Long Island mansion, and needing cultural consolidation. Not that these groups don't exist they do, about equally as far as I could see; but they did not set the dominant tone of college life.

Now, it seems to me that a lot of confusion is caused by the wide currency of the phrase "working your way through college". What the American usually means by this is paying your own way or part of it, while following a full-time programme of university studies. The work meant is part time and vacation work, and plenty of help is available at most colleges for students wishing to do this. Some students, no doubt, get their degrees like so many Vic students—through a slow piling up of unit after unit ("credits", they're called), gained in night class study.

A Course is a Course is a Course

But the curriculum of the average American college is not planned in a way that makes this course very feasible. On the other hand, many students—teachers especially—who want to collect a degree while supporting themselves at some full-time work, do so by attending summer schools. Here work is said to be intensive in spite of the holiday atmosphere; in say a three month period. 4 student may gain two or more credits. An excellent example of this sort of study is given by the Foreign Language summer schools held by a famous womens college. Mount Holyoke. I believe. Students have to pledge not to speak anything but the language they are studying for the whole course. Experts in the language, usually nationals, give lectures, conduct discussion groups, and expect thorough preparation for their classes. Students graduate from such courses with excellent accents, and a practical working vocabulary which covers their everyday needs (they wouldn't get far in camp life without it!). Such courses are more possible for teachers because their holidays, maybe because of the heat, seem to be somewhat longer than ours. That may be one reason why American children leave high school a year older than ours, and take four years to complete the average B.A. course.

The colleges I visited seemed to offer both a wider variety of subjects to undergraduates, and a more rigid insistence on a planned programme of studies than Victoria does. Nearly everybody takes four years over their first degree—it's the exceptional student who graduates in three and a half years, ending up out of step with his or her classmen.

The concept of a "class", as the group of people graduating together from a university is of course, almost completely absent from the University of New Zealand. For most of us—and we're still generally part-timers—no certain prediction can be made on the day we matriculate as to the day we will graduate. It's certain that a lot of us won't graduate at all. On the contrary, the American student, unless quite unfitted for university studies (and the better universities have entrance tests designed to prove all the students accepted capable of profiting from further education and of graduating from college) is expected by everyone to emerge, diploma in hand, at a certain definite Commencement. The "Class of '52" is thus all those students now in their last, or senior, year at college, who are expected to graduate next June.

Not All Free

Though there are excellent (and otherwise) State universities, free usually to citizens of the State which supports them. I suppose the majority of American universities are still endowed, privately run, fee-charging institutions. The cost of supporting a student at one of them is not light, and has become heavier in recent years, so that college presidents are perhaps beginning to be chosen for their ability as fund-raisers as well as their academic qualifications. Many parents make great sacrifices to send their children to college. The utility value of a university degree, in terms both of social success and economic security, is great. (The New York Times scarcely ever runs the engagement of a girl who is not an alumna of some well-known college, or a student at one.) But there are always those who would find it impossible to pay fees and living expenses for their children, on whom the responsibility of finding the whole or part of the cost necessarily falls. A good deal of scholarship help is available at endowed universities, such as the one I went too.

Practical Suggestion

For the rest, that invaluable American institution, the "Placement Office" steps in. These student employment bureaux, now found at most American colleges, generally staffed with experienced people, find part-time jobs for students who want to make some money while they study. Baby-sitting, waitressing, typing. etc., were popular with the girls at my college. The college also employed many girls directly as library assistants, demonstrators in science courses, etc. Another, and even more vital aim of the Placement Offices is to see that each of the graduates goes to a position on leaving college.

A well-run Placement Office does not seem to be an undertaking beyond the grasp of a college such as Victoria. A trained vocational guidance officer would be needed: some of the necessary finance could be simply raised by charging a nominal fee for consultations: perhaps the college authorities might be persuaded to meet the rest.

More students might feel able to come full-time (and take advantage of the extra bursary help often available to them on condition they do so) if they could be more certain of finding spare-time jobs and profitable vacation work. Since we New Zealand students fortunately do not have to pay fees, a student helped in this way might not find it too hard to keep afloat financially through the fewer years needed by our undergraduates to complete their degrees. Having done odd part-time jobs found for me by the Wellesley College Placement Office. I'm reasonably sure the break from studies is often a help rather than the reverse, in fact baby-sitting, provided there were customers enough, gave one a better chance of study than one's own room in a hostel!

More full-time students: after a year at a college where everybody was a full-timer, I'd put this as one of Victoria College's most urgent needs. Others, as Salient readers don't need reminding, are the new Student Association building, and more and better hostels for students who have to live away from home. With these achieved, an improvement in the college's academic standards would probably result. But these measures would also helo tremendously in building up in Victoria College the sort of corporate life which is my strongest impression of my year at Wellesley. We Just don't know what we're missing in the way of extra-curricular activity, and in terms of contact with our fellow students.

Pauline Hoskins.