Flog a Fresher week

The north-east of England, where we live, has a multitude of Universities – five, if I count correctly: Newcastle, Northumbria, Durham, Sunderland, Teesside. The students must be arriving shortly for the new academic year, and a comment on the Yahoo Traditional Mentoring and Discipline group fired my imagination:

You sound so much like my wife and myself. We are life coaches for a few local college students. We even have one that travels to us from several hours away as needed.

This could bring a whole new perspective to Freshers’ Week: sign up for classes, meet new friends, buy textbooks, register with a local disciplinarian. Oh, what fun could be had – and all whilst helping a student to adjust to the demands of university life. Long conversations first, setting the ground rules. A misdemeanour a few weeks into term: a first, nervous trip over the knee. Later, a serious transgression, and a first sharp taste of the cane.

The best mentors might even take on two students. I picture the young ladies, passing outside our front door, one arriving, one departing have had her work reviewed and correction applied. Knowing that they must surely visit the house for the same reason, they would avert their eyes shyly from one another.

One imagines them meeting subsequently in more conventional surroundings, in some student bar. A mutual friend would introduce them: “Have you met?” “No, we haven’t,” they’d both respond, just a fraction too quickly.

Haron wouldn’t join in, of course. She’d be too busy reflecting ruefully on some of the ‘motivation’ that’s come her way during her studies in the past few years…