Embedded Files
I can think of two reasons you might have landed on this page. The first is that you're a fan of the seemingly immortal singing group on the right, in which case here they are and you can leave as soon as you're ready to. (By the way, did you know that at least sixteen different women have been members of the Three Degrees over the years? Should they therefore be renamed the Sixteen Degrees and Still Rising?)
The other, more likely reason you're here is that you want to be sure I actually do have three degrees (and two diplomas) before asking for some tutoring, but you're too embarrassed to ask me directly to produce the certificates. So I will walk you through them, explaining the Cambridge system as we go, as it's a little arcane.
First, here is my BA certificate. The BA is the degree you get at the end of three years of undergraduate study. Annoyingly, it doesn't say that I came third in maths across the university, or even that it was a first class degree. You could, I'm pretty sure, verify the first-class bit by enquiring of the relevant person in the bowels of the university administration; but I warn you, they all hate their jobs so they are usually quite grumpy.
The "came third" bit would require another approach, as this information is only communicated to students privately. My particular private communication came from a young long-haired hippie lecturer in pure maths who was a fellow of my college. He is still there, now as an old short-haired hippie professor in pure maths. Would he still remember me after 43 years? I don't know, but he is a very approachable chap and he might be able to dig up the information.
Then I got my maths MA. It sounds good, but in fact this is the qualification I'm least proud of, because it involved no work whatsoever. People at other universities work very hard for MAs, but in Cambridge, once you've got your BA, you get your MA automatically a few years later, as long as you fulfil a number of conditions, the main one of which is that you have to stay out of prison. You'll be pleased to hear I managed that, and here is the proof.
I then switched to computer science, because I enjoyed programming, and because at the time (I don't think it's true these days), careers in maths usually seemed to involve a lot more work with weapons of mass destruction than I was comfortable with. I started my computing career with a one-year diploma course to get me to the level where the world would in principle be my oyster. Of course, you'll already have noticed that the certificate says "with distinction", so I don't need to mention that.
The next exhibit is the one that was hardest to acquire but opened the most doors for me. It also meant that I have quite often had to tell people in need of medical help or advice that I'm "not a proper doctor". Neither, despite what the certificate says, am I to be relied on for philosophical advice, unless you count computer science as a branch of philosophy, which would be at best a debatable claim.
I then turned my PhD thesis into a book, which is now apparently a collector's item because very few people bought it. If you want to know what it was about, this review will give you an idea; the review starts with a tolerably good joke, which I'm sorry to have to say was not included in the book itself.
Along the way, I also acquired a Certificate in Counselling, which later on magically turned into an Advanced Diploma, just as my BA turned into an MA.
And finally I will mention my crowning achievement: through all the intervening decades and multiple house moves, I have managed not to lose any of these certificates, which must I suppose mean I am an organized sort of person.
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse