Granny goes to university

After retiring, Bunty was eager to achieve a lifetime ambition to study literature at university. Her fellow students were very happy to accept a grandmother in classes, but the lecturers were openly rude and dismissive towards her.

"The university administrator was happy to take my money," sighs Bunty, "but she never warned me that mature aged students are disliked by the teaching staff."

"I was so afraid of being ostracized by the young students that it never even occurred to me that the teaching staff would be a problem," explains Bunty.

"Most of the lecturers are approaching retirement age and are of my generation rather than very much younger than me," says Bunty, "and I suppose this is the problem. They just don't expect to be teaching someone of my age and probably resent the fact that I'm retired and they're not."

"From the very first day in classes I was picked on and discriminated against," says Bunty.

"I sat at the back of the class - not wanting to draw attention to myself - and the male lecturer deliberately selected me to start the introductions."

"I had to stand up and tell my life story - like a little kid - and I really resented this," says Bunty. "I didn't expect university to be like a kindergarten!"

"At the next class we had a women lecturer who didn't do the introductory stuff but chose instead to humiliate me in an extraordinary manner by asking me whether I was in the right room. Apparently, they had special 'geriatric' non-graduate' classes at the university and she was suggesting - in an oblique way - that I was more suited to that class than hers!"

"As the weeks wore on I was subjected to intense scrutiny by the lecturers," says Bunty.

"There was one male lecturer who hounded me. He would walk to the back of the class and pick up my books to see whether I had prepared for the lesson by highlighting the relevant chapters - like the other students did - and when he saw my pristine books he refused to believe that I had done my homework!"

"I have too much respect for books to deface them with highlighting and scribbles," explains Bunty, "but he was more interested in believing whatever he wanted to believe in than anything I had to say."

"I called him the smiling assassin," laughs Bunty, "because he really did smile in an evil way when he spoke to me."

"He would always swoop on me to answer questions in the hope that I would make a fool of myself," says Bunty, "and unfortunately he succeeded most of the time."

"I hadn't studied anything since I'd left high school," sighs Bunty, "and I was looking forward to a relaxed course in literature where the lecturers lectured and all I had to do was listen and absorb."

"I wasn't expecting to have to prepare for each lesson and essentially be my own teacher," sighs Bunty. "What was I paying these guys for?"

"In addition to the daily lesson preparations, we had endless tests in preparation for the examinations," says Bunty, "and the whole thing was like a sausage factory."

"Finally, I came to the conclusion that the guys running the course weren't interested in teaching an appreciation of literature - or even capable of doing so," says Bunty. "Instead, they were churning out sausages for the sausage factory and my presence in their classes embarrassed them."

"Being judged by young students didn't bother them," explains Bunty, "but being judged - and exposed - by someone of their own age must have rattled them!"

"No wonder they resented me in their classes."

"Discrimination is based on fear, isn't it?"

"I didn't bother finishing the course," says Bunty. "Instead, I joined the 'geriatric' class and actually gained the type of education I wanted."