John Ddungu

[Jo]

Isn't it just? I thought, but didn't like to ask, that he might have committed suicide, though nothing in the obituary said so. His mother must be devastated.

Interesting comments at the end of the piece: one saying that the leap from A levels to Oxbridge is high because Oxbridge colleges demand such high standards; another saying that the Oxbridge approach is a bit of a con, mainly designed to attract funding.

[NEILL THE NOTORIOUS]

So, So Sad, and a terrible shock for all of us who had met him.

[J.R.]

Sadly, this isn't a rare case in this day and age of the pressures being put on students !

[Kim2s70-77]

How incredibly sad.

[kerrensimmonds]

Absolutely. Incredibly sad and I feel for his mother. Regrettably this is not an uncommon story, though I am sorry about the pressures under which John felt while at Oxford. Even in the smaller, less pressurised University environment in which I work, I can confirm that there have been two suicides in the last three years. In each case, the student appeared totally normal and had been home the weekend before they took their own life, without mentioning their academic concerns to anyone. One hung himself in his Hall of Residence, another went onto a live railway line in front of a train. Tragic.

[icomefromalanddownunder]

; another saying that the Oxbridge approach is a bit of a con, mainly designed to attract funding.

While not wishing to detract from this devastating event, or to suggest that I am under anything like the pressure that John and other undergrads at Oxbridge colleges are experiencing, I can tell you that my experience as a postgrad at a certain South Australian university has been that the institution no longer sees itself as a place of learning, where students are the focus.

In fact, our newly arrived Head of School (came from a non-academic background in UK; so no understanding of Australian culture or academia) told us that a lecturer's first concern is not their students, but to attract research funding. We now have no technicians (to maintain the labs and equipment within, and to teach students bench skills), very few office staff (to look after the photocopier, receive, sign for and forward orders to appropriate persons, etc), yet are told that the university must function as a business (without the infrastructure that a true business has).

Despite having a lot of fun while working on my PhD (including my wonderful trip to Europe that enabled me to attend the Hertford reunion) I was, in effect, a very poorly paid research assistant. I am now back in full time employment in biotech and a PhD in wine research is of no benefit to what is left of my career/working life. Submission of my thesis and the second research paper that I believed was ready for submission in January, would be, however, of great value to my Supervisor's career. She is, however, far too busy to proof-read anything I was submitting to her, or to expand on the brief comments that she might verbally throw at me in passing about things that she thought should be included in the paper.

I am very fortunate to be back in full time employment and relatively free of the pressure and negativity that prevails at uni. I am, however, still grappling with the 'there's no such word as can't' versus 'it is of more benefit to me to put my energies into my current position than to battle with completing my thesis' internal debate.

But, hey, who'd want to be known as Dr Payne, anyway?

[Jo]

Still a bit off topic from poor John....

When I did my first degree, straight from school, it never occurred to me that the primary function of universities was not to educate students. I don't know whether I was just naive, or whether things have changed dramatically since the mid-seventies. When I did my masters a few years ago, at another Russell Group university, it became very clear that the main focus was definitely on research, and that students were a bit of a necessary evil in order to attract funding.

In fact, though I enjoyed the course enormously, I felt seriously unsupported with my dissertation. I was allocated the Head of Department as my supervisor and I consider that I completed it despite, rather than because of his support. He met with me once, and when I submitted my final draft he was away on leave. Fortunately I complained and got some useful feedback from someone else. I discovered later that not only did he not have a PhD, I don't think he even had a masters himself. I gave the course manager some feedback afterwards that he was useless as a supervisor and she more or less said that they had to give him to someone so they gave him to someone they thought would be able to manage

[Angela Woodford]

This link is heartbreaking.

[Katharine]

I went from CH to the same Oxford college many moons ago. The transition was not easy, having been thought a high flier in mathematics at school it was so galling to discover other people who could do it, and whisper it, could do it even more easily than I could! I know I was let down by the famous tutorial system when I was struggling with these strange feelings and did not achieve what DR had expected of me. I had hoped, from some of the things I have read from LMH, that their tutorial system was better now than it was then.

[Great Plum]

I read his obit in the Old Blue - the whole thing is tragic...