An Indirect Uni Experience

Walking into the noisy hall my senses are bombarded with students voices – low, high pitched, in the midst of laughter or a yell. Everyone is talking over one another, but being in Poland, this should not come as a surprise. The commotion is due to the fact that it's the end of the school year, for some it's the end of a chapter in their lives that they are to dearly miss.

My partner is one of these people, he has just spent the past three months working on his dissertation. After 95 pages, and many late nights, it's finally done. We arrive in hope and anticipation that he can finally submit the professionally bounded document, be given a date to defend it – answer questions in front of a board – and feel a sense of relief that it's finished, that soon he will have his diploma and he can move on.

If only it was that simple.

First he has to stand in line, three actually, each crowded with thirty plus students there for the same thing. It's hot outside and I can feel sweat running down my spine, there's no air conditioning and outside it's close to 30 degrees. The multitude of bodies standing side by side, in front or behind each other is only intensifying the heat. The queue continues, pretty boys try to push in, thinking they are too good to stand in line, but no one dares to tell them to head back in line, it reminds me of the tuck shop line (school canteen) back in secondary school with students waiting and pushing in for their pies and sausage rolls.

We progress to the window forty minutes later only to be informed that there's even more paperwork to complete, documents to sign and stamp. Red tape. There's plenty of it here. Everything works against the citizen, student, patient, parent, employer, pupil, teacher. No one has discovered that if you help someone out and make their life easier, you are in fact also helping yourself.

I like to think that things will change. That future students and citizens are going to have it easier. More sweat trickles down my thigh as I stand in the queue for the cashiers desk while my partner rushes to the library to sign off that there's no overdue books (if there he might not get his diploma), and to sign off his practicals, even though they have little relation to his degree. I've come across this before, where psych graduates are working in accounting and handyman as bakers. I suppose everyone here goes for whatever they can get.

Two hours later we're back at home, sending emails to satisfy the schools requirements in relation to even more documents. He will have to go back and go through it all again. Stand in the lines, chase up his grades, paperwork and anything else that he needs in order to fulfil expectations, requirements, and graduate.

Two days later it's all submitted. I breath easier. I swear I've been stressing and worrying more than he has. I'm proud of him. After months of hard work it's all done, and now we can both relax.

I've been thinking about going to do a Masters degree in Warsaw as they offer courses in English, my Polish is advanced but not advanced enough to complete two years of university and pass. This experience, however, is making me rethink the issue. Unless I can find a university that is computer orientated, has organisational skills and is with the times, I will bypass the idea and wait till I return to Australia.