The CV Piece
I have written this so that I can write “wrote for the student newspaper” in my CV. It may also mean that under “Early Career” in my Wikipedia entry (no such thing currently exists; an astonishing lapse on the part of my fans) you will see the sentence “At university he wrote for the student newspaper” rather than “At university he watched all of YouTube”. I think that it is important that I make my motive plain now and remind you that you need not read any further.
I had toyed with the idea of filling up the rest of these 650-750 words with a load of aimless wittering about how I had thought even when I was in school that it would be a good idea to write for the student newspaper. Other, as yet unfulfilled, ambitions included becoming really good at tango, becoming really good at capoeira, ditto photography, acting and directing, and developing enormous muscles. But I am not going to waste your time (at least not in that way). Prepare instead, dear reader, for your world to be upended by my incisive and damning examination of The Whole Sordid Business Of Writing Stuff For The Student Newspaper Just To Say That You’ve Done So In Your CV itself!
It would not be controversial, I think, to claim that the CV-bolstering instinct accounts for much of what is written in this paper. People write and submit pieces for all sorts of other reasons — many of them noble, I’m sure — but career prospects must be at the forefront of many a student writer’s mind. Is this a bad thing? After all, this pursuit of self-interest ensures that every issue of our student weekly is well stocked with articles. Arguably, it would be a skimpier publication were this incentive absent.
Self-interest, it seems, is the central issue here and in what follows I present for your delectation my little treatise on the subject based on stuff that I have seen on the telly. The Wire (kind of a drama) is a programme that hates careerists. It tells stories of institutional dysfunction and more often than not change is obstructed by characters’ desire for self-advancement. In another television programme, Adam Curtis’ documentary The Trap, an alternative take on self-interest is presented in an interview with economist James M. Buchanan who suggests that public servants who are motivated by things other than money (cited alternatives are job satisfaction and a sense of public duty) are dangerously unpredictable and “zealots”.
“So,” you say, “what does this mean for Student Direct? Please enlighten me further.” I say, “Open your mind. Let us not look solely at student journalism let us look also at student politics.” That’s right, sit up; we’re talking Politics now. I have no figures to hand but I’m not going to let that hold me back from claiming that a large proportion of Manchester students don’t bother to vote in the union elections. I’ve certainly never bothered voting. In my first year I went along to the union to vote but the queue looked to be several orders of scale larger than the shit that I gave about who got elected.
The main reason that I tend not to vote in these elections is the spectre of careerism that I see hanging over the whole event. Many of our national politicians start off in student unions; often it is the beginning of their political careers. Both Tony Blair and David Cameron have been marketed on the basis of their not having been involved in student politics; it seems that their strategists identified that the British public has a distaste for cloistered political careerists. I share this distaste; you may not. So I hope that if you voted in the union elections recently you thought about your political convictions, your partisan leanings and all that good stuff, but you might now spare a moment to think about think about how you would feel in twenty years time if you saw the face of that person you voted for turn up on Question Time pontificating about welfare-dependence or equivocating about immigration with Paxman or pretending be on first name terms with the UN Secretary-General in smarmy conversation with Andrew Neil. Could you live with it? You helped them on the way. Think about it.
***
Now, far be from me to bite the hand that slightly enhances my career prospects, I have some problems with the sub-editing. This was the cue for much Eastwood-in-Gran-Torino-esque grunting: grrrrrr! I realise that I have this in common with anyone who has ever written a thing for printing in a bigger thing but who's going to stop me having a moan anyway? It's not going to be you, that's for sure. What you see above is how I originally wrote the article. It is not perfect and in fact I am quite embarrassed by it for all sorts of narcissistic reasons; we needn't go into that as there is plenty of self loathing elsewhere on this blog (particularly in the early posts, if you are interested). However, some of the things that got changed were weird. There was some editing for length; this, I am fine with. But in the first paragraph the word "lapse" was joined by the words "of judgement" for no reason. Later on the the word "spectre" was Americanised. The word "wittering" became "twittering"(!?). Worst of all, perhaps, The Wire became "a typical US drama"... I'm sorry The Wire, very, very sorry. This is just a taster; there were other changes and I imagine that were you to see them you would be just as scandalised as I was. As such, I will post the altered version as a comment on here as soon as it goes up on the paper's website.
Despite all this, the fact of this thing's being printed is basically good news. Hurrah!
(Should also mention some of the Good Changes: condensing some of my nonsense and a great title: This Will Look Good On My CV. Thanks).
Update: this is the picture of me that was used:
In the cropped version in the paper I looked like I might turn into Brian Blessed at any moment.
1 comments:
This Will Look Good On My CVI have written this so that I can write in my CV that “I wrote for the student newspaper”. It may also mean that under “early career” in my Wikipedia entry (no such thing currently exists; an astonishing lapse of judgment on the part of my fans) you will see how “at university he wrote for the student newspaper” rather than “at university he watched YouTube”. I think that it is important that I make my motive clear now and remind you that you need not read any further.
I didn’t vote in the student elections due to the specter of careerism that I could see hanging over the whole eventI have toyed with the idea of filling up the rest of this article with a load of aimless twittering about how I had thought even when I was in school that it would be a good idea to write for the student newspaper. Other as yet unfulfilled ambitions include becoming really good at tango, capoeira, photography, acting and directing, all while developing enormous muscles. But I am not going to waste your time (at least not in that way). Prepare instead, dear reader, for your world to be upended by my incisive and damning examination of “The Whole Sordid Business Of Writing Stuff For The Student Newspaper Just To Say That You’ve Done So On Your CV”.
It would not be controversial, I think, to claim that the CV-bolstering instinct accounts for much of what is written in student newspapers. People write and submit pieces for all sorts of other reasons, many of them noble I’m sure, but career prospects must be at the forefront of many a student writer’s mind. Is this a bad thing? After all, this pursuit of self-interest ensures that every issue of our student weekly is well stocked with articles. It would be an arguably skimpier publication were this incentive absent.
Self-interest, it seems, is the central issue here and in what follows I present for your delectation my little treatise on the subject, based on what I have seen on TV. The Wire (a typical US drama) is a programme that hates careerists. It tells stories of institutional dysfunction and, more often than not, change is obstructed by the characters’ desire for self-advancement. In another television programme, Adam Curtis’ documentary The Trap, an alternative take on self-interest is presented in an interview with economist James M Buchanan, who suggests that public servants who are motivated by things other than money (cited alternatives include job satisfaction and a sense of public duty) are dangerously unpredictable “zealots”.
“So,” you say. “What does this mean for Student Direct? Please enlighten me further.” I say, open your mind. Let us not look solely at student journalism, let us look also at student politics. That’s right, sit up, pay attention; we’re talking politics now. Over 90% of Manchester students don’t bother to vote, and didn’t vote, in the Union elections. I’ve certainly never bothered voting. In my first year I went along to vote but never managed it upon realising that the queue looked to be several orders of scale larger than the shit that I gave about whoever got elected.
The main reason that I tend not to vote in student elections is the specter of careerism that I see hanging over the whole event. Many of our national politicians start off in students’ unions; often it is the beginning of their political careers. Both Tony Blair and David Cameron have been marketed on the basis that they were not involved in student politics; it seems that their strategists identified that the British public has a distaste for cloistered political careerists. I share this distaste; you may not.
So I hope that if you voted in the Union elections recently, you thought about your political convictions and your partisan leanings. But now spare a moment to think about how you would feel in 20 years if you saw the face of that person you voted for turn up on Question Time pontificating about welfare dependence, equivocating about immigration or smarmily pretending be on first name terms with the UN Secretary General. Could you live with it? You helped them on their way. Think about it.
You can see the article here. There's a picture of me and a picture of Tony Blair there.
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