When young Mike Stanley arrived at Goldsmiths in 1965 to study craft, design and technology, London life was in a state of flux. Goldsmiths graduate Mary Quant was revolutionising women’s fashion, while Antonioni’s era-defining thriller Blowup featured the university’s students as extras. Fifty years later, his daughter, Connie, also chose to study at Goldsmiths, and has just completed her degree in English. So how do they think the student experience has changed since the summer of peace and love – and what has stayed the same?
Social media, of course, has transformed what it’s like to be a student – but Mike isn’t convinced it’s a change for the better. While it’s brought huge benefits to the student experience, he believes it’s also made it harder for them to achieve: “I think social media makes people lazy, because it’s too easy to stay in one place and never move. I’m sure very motivated people use it very effectively, but 18-year-olds are not necessarily that motivated or confident!”
Although she found social media useful on her degree course – the English Society’s Facebook page, for example, was a great source of information on events, lecture content and notes – Connie agrees that social media can have a negative effect on student life. “I don’t use social media a great deal as I find it a bit antisocial, and I think it can take away from the naturalness of a conversation with someone,” she says. “Also, it creates ideals and pressures for students to conform – which can cause anxiety and stress. My friends certainly felt pressure to make their time at university appear the best on social media.”
The role of a physical university itself has also changed hugely, thanks to technology. For Mike, the physical university was simply a given: there was no alternative. “You had to go into college to find out what was going on. As a student of a practical subject, I had to be in the department to do scheduled coursework and projects. That meant daily contact with fellow students and staff.”
For Connie’s generation, being onsite isn’t always essential. “Lots of lectures and tutorials can be found online,” she says, “but not in the English department, so it was crucial I went to all of mine! I could do more work at home than my dad, as I had internet and all the necessary equipment – but then Dad did design, so needed to be in the workshop with the tools. You might say it’s easier to study nowadays: information is at our fingertips, with the internet being so comprehensive. But sometimes it can have the opposite effect. It can be overwhelming and difficult to find specific information.”
Changing times also mean changing pressures: Mike remembers the 1960s as hopeful and optimistic. “Life was much simpler then,” he says. “There were far fewer choices to be made. Students and the youth were putting pressure on the establishment to change attitudes to race, gender and politics. London between 1965 and 1968 was an important place in the world of music, fashion and design. Youth culture was changing the way we all lived.”
Few would argue that times are very different now – although Goldsmiths is still at the forefront of those new conversations happening around the issues that Mike’s generation began to change. Students are facing new worries because of tuition fees, says Connie, which didn’t exist when Mike was a student. “I think there is more pressure on me to ‘do something related to my degree’, as I have paid so much for it,” she says.
Mike remembers having a lot of fun on a very limited income. “I had my accommodation and meals free and a £150-a-year grant from the local authority, plus a similar-sized parental contribution. That meant I was not far short of what I had earned in my first year’s employment, two years earlier. I remember being able to run a car throughout the three years and also sometimes having money left in my account at the end of a term.”
Connie also worked during her degree, and is using the skills she learned to enhance her CV. “I worked for Goldsmiths as a student ambassador, which was very handy as they were really understanding about my priority being uni work, and I fitted in shifts around that,” she says. “The work was very varied and gave me a wide breadth of experience that I have drawn on in job interviews since. I also worked at home during summers and Christmases to make extra money. I sometimes felt guilty for enjoying myself or spending money on going out, as I knew how much debt I would be in when I graduated and thought I should always be studying.”
Both say they made the most of their very different student experiences. Mike remembers Goldsmiths as “the most enjoyable time of my life. The course I was studying was both intellectually challenging and practically satisfying. Together with the social life and sports opportunities, it couldn’t be bettered.” For Connie, it was all about being resourceful enough to enjoy yourself on limited funds: “The English Society hosted really cool spoken-word poetry nights which inspired me to write my own. I took Dad’s advice and went to all the freshers’ events, which proved a good choice as I made some lifelong friends there.”
Connie first started telling people she wanted to go to Goldsmiths at the age of eight, and she’s never regretted that early decision. “Dad always talked about his time at Goldsmiths in a positive way, and used to tell me stories of what he got up to there when I was little,” she says. “My favourite place in New Cross was the Hill Station Cafe, just by Telegraph Hill, because I used to walk that way home and it’s so different to the hustle and bustle of New Cross Road. I used to get a coffee from there, and sometimes they have live music – but I would also sometimes just go to the park to chill out and watch the sunset. Oh, and Dad told me about drinking in the Marquis of Granby – we went there together, and apparently the carpet hasn’t changed!”
Goldsmiths picture gallery: compare the 1960s’ campus with today’s
