Anglo Mango, MSc

After much ado and with little fanfare, I've learned that I've passed the department's requirements for receipt of my MSc and the department has kindly requested that the University should give me one.

The fabled day was actually last Friday, the day we figured the letters would be arriving at everyone's homes (following an email earlier in the week saying they would be sent out). So on Friday I took my sweet time getting home, stopping at the gym and then casually strolling the remaining distance despite it's faint level of after dark sketchiness. Sitting in the front hallway there were 3 entire pieces of mail addressed to me. Normally I get none so this was something. One clearly showed it was sent from Southampton, one was from the bank and then I didn't really notice the third. After casually putting some of my items away, I finally opened up the envelope from Southampton, which was bigger the rest and thus implied that it was important. A single piece of paper was within, which I pulled to find.... a notice that I wasn't signed up for graduation, and saying simply that if I wanted to get I best get on that. There was nothing else in the envelope. Needless to say I was a little confused.

I looked again at my remaining pieces of mail. The third, more sedate envelope also revealed a Southampton origin. So I opened that, and in about three lines of text was told that I had passed and they would let the powers that be know this and at some point will get a diploma in the mail. Finding this rather uninspiring and anticlimactic, I put it down and went and watched tv. I had basically expected as much, and would have really only been quite upset if it had denied me the privilege. And what was I supposed to do? Break out a bottle of bubbly? I haven't even been to Southampton since I moved at the start of September and hadn't been to a class since the end of May. Alas, if they want to send me a diploma that's fine.

So has my life changed now that I have an MSc? Well technically receiving it was a condition of getting my job, but they haven't really asked if I've received one and certainly haven't asked for a copy of my diploma to keep on file. My business cards have alleged ownership of an MSc since early October, and it's just been assumed since that time that I've had one (or at least I've been treated as having the knowledge that one would acquire while studying for such a degree). I've been immersed in the 'I'm a postgrad, you're an undergrad' superiority complex since the course started what can only be described as ages ago. While I suppose now I'll be able to tick those boxes on questionnaires that say 'post-graduate degree or higher' without it being a bit of a stretch, but those things are few and far between. Alas, it seems my life is destined to remain relatively unchanged.