Great venue, fantastic company, and lots of dancing!
I was lucky enough to sit next to Raewyn Connell (!) and also met a host of other nice people. Everyone was stunned at my story that this was my first time on a campus and two professors suggested (with Raewyn agreeing) that I should write a short piece for the TASA newsletter about my experience. I might just do that... One guy just couldn't get over the fact that before this week I had never been in a lecture theatre yet I'm half way through my degree.
Anyway, it was a really good night and I managed to get home before 12 and therefore did not turn into a pumpkin!
So I was up bright and early this morning to pack, check out of the hotel and make my way to the Monash campus at Caulfield for the last time. This whole "being on campus" thing is fun, but if I am to be totally honest, it would not be practical for me to study on campus at this point in time. The flexibility of online study out-weighs any negatives in terms of lack of interaction with staff and students. The experience this week has been fantastic though and I am so thankful that I was given the opportunity.
I decided to mix it up and attend a youth studies thematic session this morning. Three speakers presented very different papers but they were all quite interesting. The first was about the change in transition to work and the challenges associated with it, the second was a bit more theoretical and looked at an historical perspective of the capacity for autonomy for youth (regulation v self-governance), and the third related a project of gathering the 100 most influential works in the study of youth and young adulthood. These sessions, like all others I have attended, also incorporate time for questions and discussion afterwards and sometimes that is fascinating in itself.
The last of the large plenary sessions consisted of four prominent sociologists talking about their journeys through their working life and how universities (and in particular technology) have changed over the last 30 years or so. Reflections on gender balance in faculty (and the difference in the roles for women), technology - the introduction of tippex, the photocopier, personal computers and the ways in which this has affected teaching and research, breaking down disciplinary boundaries, and whether sociology communities are too self-referential and does that affect their relevance. All of this is very interesting, illuminating, and practical in terms of any future studies or research I might be involved in. Great stuff!
In the second last session of the conference I continued on with the youth studies theme and listened to three great talks. One explored a study they conducted on 16/17 year olds and how they were 'planning' for the future - their thoughts on kids, marriage etc - surprisingly they just about all wanted marriage and kids by their mid 20s. The next session was equally interesting and was about rural & remote kids deferring university at a much higher rate than their urban counterparts. The feature of this presentation was that for the first time I got up the courage to ask a question in the forum afterwards...it only took me 4 days! The last one was about youth in Cambodia and sort of followed the rural/urban theme in terms of their opportunities. All were fascinating, as always!
The final session looked at social theory from the point of view of three different panelists. They discussed issues such as the crisis in sociology with the reduction of critique, slow versus fast theory (they liked slow!), and finally the similarities between celebrities and the way academics are forced to be 'stars' and out-perform each other in order to gain attention in an information saturated world. Another great session.
Well, I only have farewell drinks then it is back on the train to get to the airport and the trip home. It has been an exceptional experience. I am proud of myself that I attended every session, was never late, always stayed til the end and was generally well behaved (I didn't get drunk last night but I probably did dance badly!)
Everything this week has met my expectations so I couldn't ask for more - it has been wonderful.
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