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Tim Cordon-Lloyd faces me idly while clumsily fumbling his pen between his thumb and his forefinger. With rhythmical intensity he restlessly clicks the nib in and out, constantly tapping the head of the pen against the cracked wooden arm rest of his chair. Although his exterior may be unsettled and distracted it helps nothing towards reading the man behind his un-aiding stare. There is no hint of stress or anxiety behind his deceptively calm blue eyes. It doesn’t take much time to figure out that Tim is a man of few problems and even fewer worries about those problems.
“Definitely not”. The short succinct phrase is as much an expression of his character as it is a summation of his attitude towards his degree. Although his response is cursory, it is by no means an inaccurate reflection of his disposition. Like many, Tim was attracted to Rhodes University to study journalism, and like almost as many, when asked as to whether he intended to take his degree to a second year of study, his reply is a simple “definitely not”. Tim doesn’t fill the ensuing silence with any aids or hints to understanding his reasoning; he has made it plainly clear that his convictions do not require anybody else’s verification or approval, his parents included. “My mom is not that phased about it, if all goes according to plan I have other majors that I can do” He takes a moment to reflect and then adds, “even though I came here to do journ she’s not fussed that I’m dropping it.” Tim joins a mass statistic of first year journalism drops outs. The same eager first years who held the strongest convictions of their intentions to complete a journalism degree at Rhodes, now hold equally strong convictions of laughing off the credit as soon as the chance presents itself. The reasons for this are many, but amongst these there seems to be a common trend of opinion, one which Tim himself subscribes to. “I don’t know. I just feel like I’ve been wasting my time. And I don’t at all regret coming to Rhodes, but it feels like up to this point that the work has been pointless. It’s like doing hours and hours of work that I could have just as easily have done in school, I get the impression that it’s like I’m working for the sake of it.” Tim is the archetypal first year journalism drop out. Disillusioned and eager to move on, it seems there isn’t much that could change his mind.
But why is it like this? As a student who has taken journalism for near 8 months, Tim’s advice is certainly indispensable on the topic of surviving first year. “Any advice to survive first year that I could give? Probably not to get your hopes up. You can’t come to Rhodes with a Romantic’s idea of journalism, and if you decided to study journalism because you’re a good writer then you’re definitely in it for the wrong reasons. It doesn’t actually have much to do with writing”. Tim further commented that if you ever felt like you were wasting your time then you were no different to him. Although his cynicism may be a deterrent to oblivious future students, this by no means makes it any less of a helpful survival aid. “There actually isn’t much I can say. You have to try it out for yourself; there are people who love journ. I’m just not one of them.” As to whether he could venture a reason for this chasm between the lovers and the haters Tim doesn’t know, he can however venture a reason as to why the latter outweighs the former. “People arrive with expectations that are too high. When you expect something amazing and you end up with anything less, disappointment is bound to follow.”