Uk bethel "university campus but nicer"
by snare&racket 24 Replies latest jw friends
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happy@last
this newspaper article is lacking comments...
There are some comments now
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KateWild
Snare,
You have been to bethel and university, you can be objective which is the most promising and rewarding. Bethel have doctors too, I bet you would never go back to Bethel as a doctor if asked would you.
Thanks for your experience
Kate xx
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snare&racket
Bethel quite literally devours your soul from within.....
Mos had to leave before they finished their 3 year contract, usually with a diagnosis like "M.E." or Fibromyalgia.
Basically they were depressed and worn out. The work regime was heavy and worst of all, you had to do with recent discovery of seeing just how un-grand Oz was behind his curtain.
We were given £15 week allowance, second hand cloathes were sent periodically in by UK JW's, there was a small room with a cupboard sized rack, with a nasty collection of second hand jackets and trousers, not numbering more than 3 or 4 of each. Underneath was a box of old shirts.
You had the best hairdresser in London who if you were nice to would give yu a 45 min haircut (45 min work break and a damn god cut. The chef was italain and fantastic, they told everyone about him. Talking to him wasn't encouraging as he was miserable. He was a recognised chef ooking the cheapest food with the cheapest ingrediants. He left after me and was DF not long after.
Ths single brothers who were 'lifers' were odd and cynical. One used to get a kick out of telling me things he felt he shouldn't like the JW's charging halls to come and use rooms for language training etc.
Then there were the most pained and oppressed people in the whole of Watchtower that most don't know exist. The unspoken secret of bethel, mocked and laughed at from within and kept quite seperate in many ways. The young men at bethel in the UK who were gay were all put in the gardening department. The jokes abounded. Maybe my memory has over dramatised how they were, but mym memory is of guys in green t-shirts and overalls, that were VERY quiet, heads down and looked pained. They were very 'camp' or flamboyant in charachter and the general opinion was that this was a place for them to come and live outide of their congregations. There was an implication that there had been 'scandals' before I got there, but that was merely implied and I have no idea what the suggestion was.
There was a small library, a seperate one for the overseers/writers.
The water tasted terrible at bethel. The upstairs offices had coolers, we had to just put up with metallic tasting 'water'.
After I got there, a nice guy called Steve arrived. We got on well. We were worked hard in the mail department. We worked on the literature as it came off the press. We cut it, wrapped it, labelled it, stacked it, pallated it. All in a 25 ft space, in teams of 4 or 5. From 8 until 5.30 (i think) it was non stop. We also did illegal printing of literature for africa that was not free, this was done after hours and the shift ended at 11.
My friend steve was found asleep on the job. He was sent home to his congregation with the shame of a bethel dismissal.
It is no university..... it is a work house where young men work for free for the hope of salvation in another life.
Lastly, our rooms were small, clean, but ruled overby the SS, I was called in for a warning because there was 'evidence' I had my heating on, but the window open. A waster of our brothers donations. I was in the new accomodation, the old accomodation was AWFUL. A room about 15ft by 15 ft where two people lived. There was a mirror and a sink. Brpthers would by foutons so they could have a bed and a couch in such a small space. Toilets and showers are in blocks and were akin to ...... well it wasn't a pleasurable place to poop.
They are the rooms in IBSA house. At the very same facility, the overseer rooms are not quite the same. They had ensuite showers and bathrooms that the SISTERS who lived at bethel (not overssers wives) cleaned, with TOOTHBRUSHES. I kid you not. The rooms were unique to each overseer. But they were decorated with leather and fine wood. They were big and spacious and with big bright windows. It was no Beth Sarim, but it certainly was not equal either.
This is an insight into the world if the GB had authority over it. Once that thought has entered your mind and you have seen it for yourself, you know you don't want to see that world. Universities let the cameras in and allow open critisism. We are asked for our opinion after every module and they are altered for the year after us. Students have reps and a huge voice. There are unions such as the BMA protecting medical student and defending their rights at university. The socirty would NEVER let the cameras in to see life at bethel...... it is JUST a cold, mechanical, functional Factory. That and a centre to initiate gossip and rumour. Bethel is where all those unwritten, yet globally recognised ideas and beliefs by JW's originate.
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fulltimestudent
S&N:
New Essex Bethel plans include...
"Its accommodation, predominantly for young members, would resemble a university campus but "nicer"
Erghhhh..... Don't become a lawyer or an engineer, a doctor or a nurse or a teacher.... come spend 3 years working for us at our factory for free. Look we have wifi...(no porn!). Come work for us for 3 years and you won't leave us with any debt! (or prospects)
p.s. My Campus was awesome, I think they underestimate university life and the buildings are some of the nicest I have had the privelage to learn in. Here is my favourite builing on Campus and I will always be greatful for learnng so much inside this beautiful building.
haha! Universities come in all shapes and sizes. At Sydney Uni, one of the Australia's oldest and most respected universities, the main quadrangle is wonderful in 19thC gothic style, but must cost a heck of lot to maintain and keep in repair.
But sadly, most of the lecture theatres are well past their use-by date.
But that's certainly not the biggest problem with the concept of a HQ resembling a University campus. In the near future a combination of the internet and modern media and communications is likely to bring a tidal wave of change to Universities, changing a way of sharing information that has been unchanged for 2500 years at least.
To illustrate, last semester at Macquarie Uni, I enrolled in a Unit called Byzantium. An extremely interesting, on campus lectures by lecturers who really knew their topic. This unit will next run in 2015, but study will be completely different. Lectures will be on video, and enrolled students will listen to them at home and only attend campus for 1 hour tutorials once a week. When this change works it's way progressively through all the study units taught, students doing a normal progression of three study units per 12 week semester (two semesters a year), will only be on campus for a total of 36 hours per semester (in lieu of the 108 hours now) plus exams and any special events. Gone will be the need for large lecture theatres holding 100-200 students. Tutorials usually cater for 20-25 students a time, so their accommodation will be unchanged. There are good and bad aspects to this far-reaching change, and this is not the place to discuss them, but I (for one) will miss the opportunity to question lecturer's in the heat of the L. Of course, some L do not welcome questions. I've found that at MU, most lecturers do welcome (even invite) questions, whereas at SU - the policy seems to be that lecturer's do not interact with students - that take's place in the tutes.
I don't think that Yahweh's "forward" (grin) -looking organisation quite wants to go down that road, or is even ready for what that all means, nor do I think that his fast-moving chariot-like organisation (did I recall that correctly) has ever stopped to think how much modern communications is going to change the way people in the west recieve and handle information, and how that will impact on large HO operations such as Joe witnesses have traditionally used.
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snare&racket
FTStudent
I left Watchtower and went to higher education immediatly. The differences astounded me. Medicine included over 40 hrs a week of lectures, with all the evidence and explination behind it presented. Debate and questions and doubt is encouraged, in fact it is TAUGHT. Our first assignment was to master referencing and to critically appraise work.
I was astounded to have one to one access to people that 'wrote the books', experts on embryology, experts in anatomy, experts in everything you can imagine! I was taught anatomy via full human dissection by someone who contributed to 'Gray's Anatomy'. THE TEXTBOOK on human anatomy.
Try and get 5 minutes with Ron Drage the angry factory overseer at WT !
I wrte a paper and I had experts from all over the world contribute, world leaders in science. Steven Jones, Richard Dawkins, PZ Myers....
The university ENVIROMENT could not be further from the reality of a cult head quaters. I know, I have been in both.
As for the actual buildings and architecture. These things do actually matter, they are great motivators, they make you feel proud and worthy to attend. They are symbols of the hard work you have put in, those sleepless nights in text books, they represent centuries and more of knowledge and searching for truth. Some people don't look twice, but I was in awe when attending them. Now I live in hospital and have done for 3 years, it isnt the same.
That sentence really annoyed me, any JW and exJW knows what he is trying to say, the implications of Bethel volunteer being a JW university and gues what it's 'nicer'. If I got my hands on him and sat him down, he would claim he was talking literally about the buildings, despite it being impssible for them to compete with the new university campuses die to the money in educaion in comparison o the purse Brooklyn ALLOWS the IBSA to have. But the message is there between the lines.
Choosing bethel over university is more than a mistake, it is a waste of someones youth, it is a con and a dupe. University matures you, it shapes you, it socialises you, it educates you and it catapults you to your career. Look at the statistics, the people who come and don't get the grades, STILL benfit in comparison to non attendees. As for the people who attend uni and slog... they have vastly better lives.
Bethel will ake you in, tie you down and tire you out. People survive on hand outs, congregation donations or credit cards. Most needed cars to drive to ministry and meetings, but it is impossible to afford one, IMPOSSIBLE. So they illegally work on weekends or in the evenings, or they go into debt for 3 years or they live of their family.
I will never forget the dissapointment when I told my non JW grandparent that I was going to London, to work in a factory , for no wages. I was 19, I didn't understand the face they pulled. Now, I can;t tell you how much regret I have. They stole my youth and binned me when I was no use to them, when I dared to raise my hand...
Ironically, universities strive to make the youth MORE useful for THEMSELVES.... and its progess in knowledge depends on the student rasing his hand and asking "how, why, when, where... prove it to me!"
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4thgen
"Did someone say 'university'?"
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St George of England
We considered a scripture in the Service Meeting this evening, Matthew 7:6 "Pearls before swine".
Trying to explain about real education to a JW is just that, throwing pearls before swine.
Thanks for posting your experiences s&r
George
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zound
Thanks for sharing your experience snare. It's wonder that the society don't get into trouble when they in fact openly boast about printing and smuggling illegal literature to other countries. Wouldn't the american goevernment be interested in this?
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factfinder
marked
