Address to Incoming Students
Edmund Burke Theatre, Trinity College Dublin
Friday, 21 September 2012
Thank you very much, Rory.
Welcome, all of you, to Trinity College, and to the start of what will undoubtedly be some of the most enjoyable, stimulating, and challenging years of your life.
There is nothing quite like that moment of walking through Front Arch into Front Square. You come from the busy street, through a dark and narrow archway, into this open and beautiful expanse of cobbles, trees and Palladian buildings. It’s an unforgettable experience, which everybody waxes lyrical over. I like to say that the approach, through darkness into light, is a metaphor of what the university should do to the mind.
I certainly remember my first time entering through First Arch. It was 1983 and I had come up from County Wexford to study engineering. Of course many of you grew up in Dublin, or you are used to visiting, and since Trinity is now an open and inviting place which welcomes visitors, you may well be familiar with the College. But what a difference between visiting as an outsider and walking in as a Trinity student! This is now your university.
If you’re anything like I was as a fresher, you will now be an interesting chemical compound of nerves and excitement, enthusiasm and trepidation. It’s precisely because Trinity is such a remarkable, challenging place that we feel such trepidation: we want to live up to it. I do as Provost, and you do as the newest students.
I want all of you to have as good an experience as undergraduates - and maybe later as postgraduates - as I had. So I’ve been thinking about what I can tell you that will help maximise your student experience.
I’m speaking as a former Trinity student, as a lecturer who spent many years teaching undergraduates, and as the head of this university. Eighteen months ago I was honoured to be elected Provost by Trinity staff and students, and one of my key roles as Provost is to help you realise your potential. For your own sake. And for Trinity’s sake.
You will all have worked hard to be admitted to this university. You deserve to be here - let no one take that achievement away from you. But you have won for yourself a privileged position. And in return much is expected of you.
It costs upwards on 30 thousand per year to educate an undergraduate student, and the vast majority of that is paid by the Irish government. Your parents may have made, and will continue to make, sacrifices that allow you to be here. Your professors and the staff in Trinity will likewise work hard for you to achieve your potential.
This is a life-changing opportunity, made possible by the dedication of many individuals. Don’t take this opportunity for granted - don’t waste it.
Today I want to say a bit about the kind of education we offer - which is a rounded education that extends to extracurricular activities. And I want to say something about the resources and the people available to help you orientate yourself - around campus, and around your studies and your student life.
Trinity is a big university. The education we offer is demanding and requires more critical and independent thinking than you will have been used to from school. I know all this can be overwhelming, especially in the beginning. But it doesn’t have to be. The more you familiarise yourself with our way of doing things, and the more you can avail of our resources, the more rewarding you will find this experience.
The Trinity Experience - 1. Education
You have come through one of the toughest pre-university systems in the world - the Leaving Cert. Congratulations for getting through it so well! But the kind of learning the Leaving Cert promotes is exam-focused - whereas a Trinity education is about learning to think for yourself.
A recent Trinity survey of employer expectations showed that employers of our graduates value:
- critical and independent thinking;
- excellent communication skills;
- and students who have developed a capacity for responsibility and initiative through extra-curricular activities.
The Trinity curriculum is aimed at developing these skills. You are about to embark on a voyage of discovery with your tutors, lecturers, and fellow students. How can you help to make the most of it?
As far as academic studies go, I’d advise three things:
- The first advice is obvious: go to your lectures and seminars, complete your coursework, and use the library and online research resources. In short, get into a regular pattern of study as soon as possible. It’s astonishing how quickly time flies in university. If you leave study to the last minute, you’ll panic, and there’s no way to make up for lost time.
- Second, start thinking of yourselves not as pupils, but as scholars. As a Trinity student, your education is research-led. By your final years as undergraduates, you should be engaged on original research using primary sources. You will be discovering and writing up something that no-one else has ever looked into. It may be something small, but it will be the result of your unique research. The division between you and your professors will dissolve - you will be scholars together, engaged on a common enterprise of discovery.
So from the outset, start thinking not what you can remember, but what you can discover.
If you do your essays and coursework, you’ll automatically get in the habit of discovery, because this work is aimed at making your think. Your lecturers don’t want you to regurgitate what they say. They want you to come up with your own interpretation.
- Third, speak up in public. Use tutorials and seminars, to speak up and debate your position. This will help you strengthen your arguments and it will develop those communication skills that employers are looking for.
The Trinity Experience - 2. Extracurricular
But it’s not just what happens in the classroom, the seminar, or the laboratory. It’s the entire Trinity experience that counts. We currently have hundreds of clubs and societies - and societies keep multiplying. There are certainly many more than when I was fresher. We had never even heard of Paintball...
Today, whether your interest is chess, comedy, horse-racing, juggling, boxing, politics - you name it... there’s a club or society for you. And if your interest isn’t being catered for, start one of your own.
In clubs and societies, you’ll have fun, make friends, learn new skills, and get a different perspective on the world. Employers favour graduates who have a life outside the lecture hall, because that’s evidence of a rounded individual with a thirst for experience. If you hold positions of responsibility in the club or society, all the better.
Clubs and societies are just one aspect of extracurricular activity. There are many more. For instance in March this year I gave out the ‘Business Student of the Year award’. The finalists had, as far as I remember: written articles, not only in college newspapers but for world publications; they had volunteered and fund-raised for charity; they had organised job fairs; one of them had started her own business; another had managed a student investment fund. Their portfolios were quite something!
There’s probably no other time in your life when you’re going to be surrounded by so many talented, dynamic people who have the time, energy and vision to explore in all directions. In ten years’ time many of you will be on set career paths and will already have firm commitments, both personal and professional.
The time for exploration is now. There are always going to be ‘roads not taken’. That’s part of life. But undergraduates have the time, the curiosity, and the courage to check out different roads - even difficult-looking terrains.
Orientation and Finding your Feet
So plunge straight into college life and spend your first term getting involved in as many extracurricular activities as possible. Start as you mean to go on - the more things you get involved with, the more familiar, and the friendlier, the campus becomes. Soon you’ll know where everything is - the library, the lecture theatres, the canteen, the sports hall, the shops,..... Do make use of the orientation documentation mailed to you.
I also think it’s useful to understand a bit about how the university is run and who is responsible for what. As Provost, I have ultimate responsibility. But this is a large university, so of course I need a team to help me run it. Some of my team are here today.
Dr Amanda Piesse is Dean of Students. Her job is to develop and coordinate policies to promote the student experience beyond the classroom.
Dr Claire Laudet is the Senior Tutor and she oversees the tutorial service provided to undergraduate students offering student support in all aspects of College life.
Let me tell you a little about this tutorial service. Trinity is unique among Irish universities in that we assign all our students a College Tutor when they begin. Your tutor is not there to help you write better essays or to study for your exams. There are other people to help with these academic issues.
Tutors have a pastoral role. Over the next four years your Tutor will be your administrative guide if you have any problems finding out how College works. Your Tutor will be your confidential counsellor if you experience any kind of personal difficulties - and will put you in touch with professionals who can help. Your tutor will be your confidential advisor should you ever get into any kind of difficulty in College, and will ensure that correct procedures are followed, and that you are never in a vulnerable position. ........even if you are in the wrong!
There are all kinds of services available to help you through college - there’s an accommodation advisory service, a Disability service, welfare and health services, careers advice... Your tutor will help you to avail of the service you need. But tutors aren’t just for trouble-shooting. You can talk through every-day, practical issues with them.
For instance some of you may have to get a part-time job to make ends meet. That’s life, and a job can help you develop skills and responsibility. But if you’re spending too much time on your job, your studies may suffer and, after all, you are here to study. So if you’re worried about getting this balance right, talk to your tutor.
Family
I’m concentrating on college services, but of course in terms of support, there’s no substitute for family support. Something I would like to emphasise is the importance of your parents and your wider family and friends at home. Do keep in contact with them. Tell them how you’re doing. Build up a mature relationship with them.
The Trinity Community
You are now a member of the Trinity community. This is a community of 16,700 undergraduates and postgraduates, of 3,300 staff, and of 92,000 past students, or alumni, living in 130 countries. It’s a world-famous community: we’re Ireland’s highest-ranked university and we have a proud 400 year old tradition. You’ll recognise the names of our most famous past students from the buildings and lecture theatres: Samuel Beckett, William Rowan Hamilton, Robert Emmet, Oscar Wilde, John Millington Synge. Today we’re in the Edmund Burke theatre. He is one of the world’s great political thinkers and his statue is by Front Arch.
The cutting-edge research carried out in Trinity today makes headlines around the world. You may, for instance, have seen some of the coverage earlier this year when Trinity researchers discovered three genes that are unique to humans; that are not shared with chimpanzees or any other primates.
So, as I like to say, Trinity scientists are helping us understand what it is to be human.
So this is a community highly visible on the world stage, and you are part of it. Your membership is not just for the next four years, or however long you study here. You will be a valued member of Trinity for the rest of your life.
Our past students, our alumni, often feel such affection for this university that many of them contribute their own money to build new faculties and libraries, or to found scholarships and prizes. In your turn you - as, I hope, well-paid and responsible members of society - will be asked to support the greatness of this College and I ask you to remember this day when you started here - and to ensure that others, in later generations, can feel as you do now.
One of our former students is now a best-selling, prize-winning author, Tana French. She lives in Dublin and her second novel, The Likeness, is set in Trinity. In an interview, she said: “What I love about Trinity is that sense that there are four hundred years of layers of memories - and that I’ve left my own little layers, together with those of the thousands on thousands of people who have been there.”
I think this quote gets to the heart of what makes Trinity special. It’s not just the cobble-stones - it’s the memories layered in the stones. It’s all the unbroken generations of students who have lived and studied and debated and partied here for centuries, that make these stones breathe, that keep the flame alive.
You are now at the start of your Trinity journey and in the course of the next four years you will be adding your own layers of memory, as I added mine, as Edmund Burke added his.
And after you have added these layers and embarked on your chosen life, we know that you will be able to face the challenges of the future with confidence, because the Trinity experience will have transformed how you view the world, and how you view yourself.
I would like to wish you all the very best of luck in your studies - and in your extra-curricular activities.
I look forward to keeping in touch with you - this year, and in the years ahead.
Thank you.