Page 139 - Šolsko polje, XXIX, 2018, no. 1-2: The Language of Neoliberal Education, ed. Mitja Sardoč
P. 139
s. hayes and p. jandrić ■ resisting the iron cage of ‘the student experience’
‘the’ ‘student experience’. If university strategy comes to resemble hotel
advertisements, then before we know it, ‘a packaged experience of con-
sumption itself ’ (Argenton, 2015: p. 921) could be what is delivered to stu-
dents by universities as a product their fees have purchased.
Surely ‘a sense of involvement’ and ‘a sense of wellbeing’ are deeply
personal and individual experiences and therefore can only be discussed
in the plural. These ‘senses’ of something cannot be sprinkled into ‘the
student experience’ buzz phrase, like ingredients into a cake.
Packaging Human Senses, Experience, Culture
and Belonging into ‘the Student Experience’
Human senses, in relation to experience and belonging, are a complicat-
ed matter. What students and staff encounter as ‘experience’ will be in-
fluenced by vision, touch, sound, smell and taste which enable people to
give meaning to, and to form an attachment with, places and material
things (O’Neill, 2001, Leach, 2002). What people ‘see’ is based on indi-
vidual experiential knowledge of the world (Gibson, 1979). Together with
sight, the other human senses help us gain multidimensional understand-
ing (May, 2013: p. 134). Yet despite such complexities around what influ-
ences human experience, the broader context of ‘neoliberalism’ can yield
rational, common sense discourse concerning what ‘experience’ entails
and ‘contains’.
Many important topics that now reside under ‘the student expe-
rience’. Cultural experiences, for example, cannot simply be applied to
students in equal measures, when students themselves arrive from dif-
ferent backgrounds, life experiences, tastes, levels of ability and resil-
ience even. Taking the example of music as one cultural experience,
what tunes we hear can evoke strong memories and emotions linked
to places and situations. May suggests that music can offer a sense of
‘embodied (in)security’ with musical experiences playing an important
part in identity, relational and cultural belonging (May, 2013: p. 135).
Through digital technologies, music is now widely available alongside
the devices and software to personalize our collections. Yet, the ‘digi-
tal shift’ or ‘digital revolution’ still happened ‘under the watchful eye of
capitalist rulers’ and so this tends to serve and augment neoliberal capi-
talism (Mazierska, 2018). That said, ‘manufactured’ forms of music now
exist alongside live performances in postdigital society. Just as ‘digitali-
sation has made live music more important and has expanded its varia-
tions’ (Mazierska, 2018), we will now speculate on how a postdigital un-
derstanding of ‘the student experience’ could offer helpful insights into
routes of resistance.
137
‘the’ ‘student experience’. If university strategy comes to resemble hotel
advertisements, then before we know it, ‘a packaged experience of con-
sumption itself ’ (Argenton, 2015: p. 921) could be what is delivered to stu-
dents by universities as a product their fees have purchased.
Surely ‘a sense of involvement’ and ‘a sense of wellbeing’ are deeply
personal and individual experiences and therefore can only be discussed
in the plural. These ‘senses’ of something cannot be sprinkled into ‘the
student experience’ buzz phrase, like ingredients into a cake.
Packaging Human Senses, Experience, Culture
and Belonging into ‘the Student Experience’
Human senses, in relation to experience and belonging, are a complicat-
ed matter. What students and staff encounter as ‘experience’ will be in-
fluenced by vision, touch, sound, smell and taste which enable people to
give meaning to, and to form an attachment with, places and material
things (O’Neill, 2001, Leach, 2002). What people ‘see’ is based on indi-
vidual experiential knowledge of the world (Gibson, 1979). Together with
sight, the other human senses help us gain multidimensional understand-
ing (May, 2013: p. 134). Yet despite such complexities around what influ-
ences human experience, the broader context of ‘neoliberalism’ can yield
rational, common sense discourse concerning what ‘experience’ entails
and ‘contains’.
Many important topics that now reside under ‘the student expe-
rience’. Cultural experiences, for example, cannot simply be applied to
students in equal measures, when students themselves arrive from dif-
ferent backgrounds, life experiences, tastes, levels of ability and resil-
ience even. Taking the example of music as one cultural experience,
what tunes we hear can evoke strong memories and emotions linked
to places and situations. May suggests that music can offer a sense of
‘embodied (in)security’ with musical experiences playing an important
part in identity, relational and cultural belonging (May, 2013: p. 135).
Through digital technologies, music is now widely available alongside
the devices and software to personalize our collections. Yet, the ‘digi-
tal shift’ or ‘digital revolution’ still happened ‘under the watchful eye of
capitalist rulers’ and so this tends to serve and augment neoliberal capi-
talism (Mazierska, 2018). That said, ‘manufactured’ forms of music now
exist alongside live performances in postdigital society. Just as ‘digitali-
sation has made live music more important and has expanded its varia-
tions’ (Mazierska, 2018), we will now speculate on how a postdigital un-
derstanding of ‘the student experience’ could offer helpful insights into
routes of resistance.
137
