University Challenged

It's exactly forty years since I finished university. Forty years since I discovered that I didn't know as much as I thought I did. Forty years since I stopped drinking coffee at three in the morning and wondering who'd nicked my milk from the fridge. Forty years since I packed away my books and waved goodbye to certainty. All in all forty years since I've been out here making a go of things on my own. And I was lucky, I got through the system back when it pretty much guaranteed you a job, not a long-term five figure debt. My last term at university passed in a blur. Most students get stuck into a decent social life at the beginning of their course, then tone things down at the end for revision purposes. I went the other way, slowly upping my number of friends until my college room was the heart of our social circle. Making friends with the second years who didn't have big exams to prepare for helped keep the visitors flowing, as did a never-empty jar of Nescafé and one of the few…