Question for students

Tom

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Everyone's favourite jack-boot wearing racist Nick Griffin had a shit article on Wikipedia, and in the interests of fairness I've been working on improving it:

User:parrot of Doom/sandbox3 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have a minor problem though. I don't know what year he graduated from Cambridge. He went there in 1977, but I don't know the typical course length, or how these things work, so I wondered if someone who knows about that kind of thing could help me out, before I copy the above into the Wikipedia article mainspace.

Although I don't feel I should have to say this, for the more reactionary types here - I think that Griffin is a racist bigoted revisionist lying idiot. I'm improving the article purely as an encyclopaedic entry, not as some kind of subtle approval of his backward views. People deserve to be able to read a neutral article - before I started on it, it was almost libellous fantasy, and completely unfair.
 

tris-

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3 years for an undergraduate course (BA, BSc etc)
add a masters - +1 year
add a phd + 3-4 years
 

DaGaffer

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3 years. Oxbridge don't do 4-year or sandwich courses (or they certainly didn't back then) except for language students. As he got a 2.2 he didn't do any postgrad work. I did think Oxbridge students got Masters rather than Bachelor's degrees though (always struck me as unfair).
 

Chilly

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they get a BSc/whatever and then a masters on top (they have to pay a couple hundred for it tho). courses nearly always 3 years. exceptions: medics, vets, prolly various legal courses.

they get the masters as well on top. It might be unfair: but people who graduate from oxbridge are generally a lot smarter than the average numpty and probably deserve it. They do more work in shorter terms on broader subject bases than other unis.
 

DaGaffer

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they get a BSc/whatever and then a masters on top (they have to pay a couple hundred for it tho). courses nearly always 3 years. exceptions: medics, vets, prolly various legal courses.

they get the masters as well on top. It might be unfair: but people who graduate from oxbridge are generally a lot smarter than the average numpty and probably deserve it. They do more work in shorter terms on broader subject bases than other unis.

I think the "pay a couple of hundred for it" is more telling than the fact they are "smarter than the average numpty". Yes they work in shorter terms on broader subject bases, but do more work? Not so sure, and they have the added benefit of personal tutoring whereas the rest of us numptys had to get by with groups of 10-15 (in my case with 2/3 foreigners who could hardly to speak English to boot. Certainly in the first year anyway). I had to work for my Masters and its always irritated me that Oxbridge types just got it. Its not like they don't have a career head start already (don't get me started on that one).
 

Chilly

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I think the "pay a couple of hundred for it" is more telling than the fact they are "smarter than the average numpty". Yes they work in shorter terms on broader subject bases, but do more work? Not so sure, and they have the added benefit of personal tutoring whereas the rest of us numptys had to get by with groups of 10-15 (in my case with 2/3 foreigners who could hardly to speak English to boot. Certainly in the first year anyway). I had to work for my Masters and its always irritated me that Oxbridge types just got it. Its not like they don't have a career head start already (don't get me started on that one).

True, they get a free masters, but an employer knows that a specific, exlicit masters is probably better than an oxbridge one.
 

Cadelin

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If you go to Oxford or Cambridge what's important is the year of matriculation.

After you have completed your course you can choose when to graduate. This could be 2 months after you get your results or 3 years. A further few years down the line you can indeed pay to graduate again. It is also possible to defer when you take your exams and some people also switch courses which could put them back a year (just like at any other university) so it would be hard to judge when somebody has actually finished the course.

Also with regards to the masters. If you do a 3 year course you initially get a BA or BSc. After 3 years you can get this upgraded to an MA or MSc but it will have (Oxon) or (Cantab) after it which indicates that it isn't a proper masters. If you do a 4 year course you will get something like MPhys (for Physics), MChem (for Chemistry) etc. If you do a separate Masters after coming from a different university there is yet another notation.
 

Tom

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So basically until someone gets his graduation certificate, or a picture of him in some daft robe with a load of other people, nobody will really know?
 

taB

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So basically until someone gets his graduation certificate, or a picture of him in some daft robe with a load of other people, nobody will really know?

Pretty much. Yes.
 

DaGaffer

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So basically until someone gets his graduation certificate, or a picture of him in some daft robe with a load of other people, nobody will really know?

Or goes off to his college and looks and the Alumni list.
 

Chilly

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he will have a degree, printed on a bit of paper. I never had a photo taken wearing a pointy hat but Im fully sorted out.
 

Cadelin

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So basically until someone gets his graduation certificate, or a picture of him in some daft robe with a load of other people, nobody will really know?

If you look at other people who have gone to Oxbridge on wikipedia (say Stephen Fry or David Cameron) you will notice that it doesn't say when they graduated either. The graduation date is not important compared to the matriculation date and you already know that.

He may not have even bothered to graduate.
 

Ch3tan

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he will have a degree, printed on a bit of paper. I never had a photo taken wearing a pointy hat but Im fully sorted out.

they didn't have a hat big enough or a lens wide enough? :p
 

Tom

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I don't know what a matriculation date is, I'm that thick :)

On a side-note, this is the first time I've worked on an article about a subject as controversial as Griffin (although Gropecunt Lane comes close, and that will be on Wikipedia's front page on 9 July). If anyone has a spare 10 minutes, I'd love to know if they consider it balanced, or well-written?
 

Bugz

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What drives you to do it Tom? Just enjoy being able to produce and share knowledge with others?
 

Cadelin

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I don't know what a matriculation date is, I'm that thick :)

On a side-note, this is the first time I've worked on an article about a subject as controversial as Griffin (although Gropecunt Lane comes close, and that will be on Wikipedia's front page on 9 July). If anyone has a spare 10 minutes, I'd love to know if they consider it balanced, or well-written?

Matriculation is the date you start and you get your picture taken with your year group (but you are not allowed to wear your pointy hat!) You mentioned he went there in 1977 so I would assume that was his year of matriculation.

Fortunately Downing College has put its Matriculation photos online so if you want you can play a game of spot the Nazi.
 

Tom

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What drives you to do it Tom? Just enjoy being able to produce and share knowledge with others?

It just appeals to my sense of order. It sounds daft but my favourite games were always things like Civilisation, Command and Conquer, games where you start small and build a large, ordered society, something you can look at and feel a teensy bit of pride in. I enjoy writing articles for that reason - I can take something that is completely unreferenced, with bad grammar etc, and turn it into a detailed and concise description of whatever the topic might be. I also enjoy the fact that as I write these things, I learn about them - you can't help it. I've learnt so much about the things I write about (mostly local history) I feel my brain is starting to turn to mush.

The Griffin article has been good for me, I can talk at length about the man and easily attack his views. Its been extremely difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff (most newspapers verge on the libellous), but I think I'm almost there. All I'm worried about really is that people might presume I'm a racist or something.
 

Tom

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Matriculation is the date you start and you get your picture taken with your year group (but you are not allowed to wear your pointy hat!) You mentioned he went there in 1977 so I would assume that was his year of matriculation.

Fortunately Downing College has put its Matriculation photos online so if you want you can play a game of spot the Nazi.

Fucking brilliant mate! No 39, right side, top. I might see if I can get permission to add that image to the article, perhaps under a 'fair use' licence.
 

DaGaffer

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Have you noticed how 18 year olds all looked about 35 in the 70s?
 

Jupitus

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Have you noticed how 18 year olds all looked about 35 in the 70s?

Which is ironic, because DaGaffer is 35, but looked about 18 in the 70s :p
 

Tom

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Matriculation is the date you start and you get your picture taken with your year group (but you are not allowed to wear your pointy hat!) You mentioned he went there in 1977 so I would assume that was his year of matriculation.

Fortunately Downing College has put its Matriculation photos online so if you want you can play a game of spot the Nazi.

lol Cadelin. You're famous. Check out the image the BBC have...erm...nicked

BBC NEWS | Politics | Nick Griffin: Political profile

Its exactly the crop I took of the image you pointed out to me :D
 

rynnor

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Kudos Tom! The Beeb should be paying you for your work they are nicking!
 

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