Your Place in Higher Torment

Have you ever wondered why universities put pictures of smiling undergrads on the homepage of their websites?

No? Then leave this blog at once.

Yes? Good. Me too.

I believe that these smiles are good indicators as to the actual experience prospective students will have as undergrads. So let’s take a look at few examples from Scottish universities, shall we?

No? Didn’t I tell you to leave?

Yes? Good. I was going to anyway. I don’t need your approval.

1. Edinburgh Napier

The image is out of focus, but we can clearly see the poor bastard in the grey shirt being ridiculed by the coffee-cupping chuckler on the right, while her accomplices restrain their giggles for the camera. What we can infer from this is that male undergraduates will undergo a humiliating time at the hands of laughing female cliques and have a miserable four years. Sounds like a normal university experience to me.

2. Edinburgh University

This image is somewhat misleading. It depicts an undergraduate in awkward-looking specs reading a textbook with an enormous beam of pleasure on her face. This alludes to the fact that beautiful female undergrads will derive much more pleasure from reading tedious textbooks than the other students. So again – male students can expect a miserable time as they sit reading textbooks in their rooms, taking no pleasure from their courses.

3. Glasgow University

Once again, the male undergrad faces ridicule from the laughing females as they mock his photograph album and make snide comments about his old haircuts. I sense a great misandrist streak running through these homepages. Once more, the male must retreat to his room and seek comfort in his Leonard Cohens while the females have a giggling funtime.

4. St. Andrews University

Now this is terrible. Look how the male undergrad has been exiled from the libraries, forced to crouch against a wall with his laptop on the floor! Other pictures on their homepage show an exercise class and other students walking together looking wistful. I hate to be the planter of suggestions here, but could the student’s ethnicity have anything to do with his ostracism? Oh, no! Surely not! I’m saying nothing here.

5. Robert Gordon University

As we can see here, a more honest approach has been taken, and men have been banished from studying completely. Quite right too. A special shout-out should go to Abertay University’s homepage. They have a series of students from every ethnic background and gender group, whose images you can click on for specialised advice.

Huzzah!