University of Warwick Open day

We had a lovely day at Warwick University yesterday. I had been to the campus before for an Association of University Administrators Annual Conference (2005) and will be going again next year. The girls loved the campus and squealed with delight when they realised their chemistry 'goody bags' included a laminated periodic table. All four girls; Rose, Alice and two friends were booked on the Chemistry talks. Hannah and Sarah also went to Biology and Alice (and I) went to Engineering.

The best part of the day for me was to see so many parents out and about, enjoying a day with their teenagers. It a much more positive image of both parents and teenagers than one ever gets from news, media etc. Its also useful to for me to find out how other university degree programmes are put together.

The girls didn't seem to get as much out of the talks as they did at Hull. I think they wanted more information about what the degree programmes included rather than what careers you might go onto afterwards. They feel they are at the stage where they are trying to choose between different degrees and they need more information about what they will study if they go to a particular University. Despite that, they both came home very impressed with Warwick and wanting to know which other Universities have campuses. I've added Loughborough and Sussex to our list of places to visit which is getting longer and longer.....

Marilyn French: the author whose novel did change lives

How sad to read in the Guardian today that Marilyn French had died [obituary]. I looked out my battered copy of the 'The Women's Room'. It was easy to find between a copy of a novel by Micheal Frayn which I don't remember ever reading, and my collection of Stephen Fry novels and autobiographies. Like Kate Mosse (Guardian G2 tribute article), I first read 'The Women's Room' as an undergraduate and some of its messages have stayed with me and to a certain extent shaped my life. Mira, the central character of the novel, chooses to pursue her own academic career rather than accept the inevitable compromises of following her academic boyfriend. The ending is a very poignant picture of a solitary female academic watching a noisy family on the beach, the family of her erstwhile boyfriend. I made the opposite decision; my husband's academic career continues to prosper, I've followed him across three continents and we have a very noisy family of teenagers. I don't have any regrets 25 years after I made that first decision to follow my heart rather than my academic calling.