Higher and Higher Education

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 RECIPE: Tex-Mex stuffed pumpkin

Note: Use small pumpkins.  This will also work with any winter squashes (like butternut).  I can only speak for the efficacy of this recipe with British/former British colony pumpkins, as I really didn't eat any sort of squash in America.  I sort of remember American pumpkins being sweeter, which wouldn't work, but maybe that's just because I only ever ate them in pumpkin pies form.

Ingredients
1/2 cup rice
2 small pumpkins
1 tsp cumin
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Handful chopped cilantro
1/8th (1/4th if you are VERY brave) tsp chili powder
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1-2 cloves garlic
2 tsp lime juice (more if you like limey zing!)
1/2 tsp lime zest

 Instructions
 Use your flat-mate's rice cooker to cook the rice. As she describes it, stick your pointer finger in, and fill rice cooker with water up to the end of your nail.  Cut the top off the pumpkins, gut them, then cook using your favorite method (either in the oven, or by steaming, which is my preference).  Meanwhile, chop the onion and the garlic.  Over medium heat, sauté the onions in oil until they are almost transparent, then lower the heat a notch and add the garlic and cumin and chili pepper.  Take out the pumkins once they are soft, and scoop out the insides.  Mix this with the rice.  Add the lime zest, onion mixture, then the cilantro.  Lastly, salt and pepper to taste, and put back into the pumpkin if you enjoy eating out of gourds.  If not, just eat plain.  Pumpkin is very healthy.
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    So, it turns out this interesting thing happens in Scotland in the wintertime.  The sun disappears.  More accurately, it rises at nine and sets by four.  The rest of the time the sky is filled with this dull grey light normally associated with early dawn, so that when you are walking around at about 2 pm it feels like 10 am and is going to feel like 10 pm in three hours.  To make matters all the better, the beginning of finals coincides with this loss of daylight.  No wonder they make you pay your entire tuition in October.
    Now, however, I am done with exams and have found the bleak midwinter not quite so bleak when you spend all six hours of daylight outside, and are surrounded by a twinkling, tinseling, on-display city.
    As this is the close of my first semester of graduate school, however, I have been thinking a lot about higher education as an institution.  Even more so because in the UK tuition fees are currently being ratcheted up at an incredible rate (3,000 pounds per year for domestic students this year goes up to 9,000 pounds per year for domestic students next year).
    This change doesn’t affect me at all, but it does get me thinking. UK students are getting extremely upset about this price rise, and quite frankly, I think they should, but the opinion of the American students is by and large “Are you kidding? Do you know how cheap that is for college?” because we’re sitting around paying about 40,000 dollars per year.  And we will pay these fees, and more, because, rightly or wrongly, you need a college degree for most jobs, and over time the expense will pay itself off multiple times.
    Then there’s graduate school.  Which is needed simply to get some jobs, or to advance in others, and is typically another two years of school, and possibly another few thousand dollars.  And top it all off with the fact that last month one of my professors said in class, “Of course you need a Ph.D. to really be taken seriously.”  The depressing thing is not that he said this, it’s that he’s right.
    To go into this issue in depth I would have to get very ranty and go on for a while, which is not the intention of this blog.  I do want to bring up two things, though.  The first is the question of the proliferation of graduate school, and the fact that college is becoming basic education and a master’s degree something you need for a specific profession.  Which seems to me a bit odd, because I feel that somewhere in between thirteen years of general schooling and four years of higher education it should be possible to impart sufficient skills for a person to be ready for all but the most specialized profession.
    Secondly, if college is to become the new basic standard of education (which it seems it already has) then charging as much as we do for it is indefensible, and I applaud the UK students for standing up to the changes now, before it gets completely out of control.
     The generations entering the workforce now are qualified, competitive, and congested.  With too many people and too few jobs the education system is tilting more towards... well, more.  If this trend continues the next generation entering the workforce is going to have seven letters behind their name, a whole lot of debt in the bank, and thirty-five years of studying before they get their first jobs.
    These were my post-exams musings.  Post musings I toured about seven different castles, sunk myself in art, and in general got back into the Scottish spirit.  More on that in a few days.  In the meantime, I hope everyone has had a happy new years, and am sorry about the delay in blogging.  I'm going to make up for it in the next week or so, and try to plan so finals don't completely take over my life ever again.