Keeping paperwork from degree done 40 years ago.

[Theacademicswife]

If you've done a degree 10+ years ago, how much, if any of your coursework/textbooks have you kept?

DH did a degree 40 years ago and has all of the paperwork and associated books from it stored in boxes in the loft.

He did another OU degree 20 years ago and you've guessed it, all the paperwork from it has been added.

After we got married, his mum was forever asking him to take it from her house and eventually gave up asking.
When she died, he brought it back to our house. Which is where it resides now.

He does tend to hold on to things for sentimental reasons, but AIBU to expect he should have gotten rid of the paperwork by now?

I know getting rid of it is nonnegotiable, but just wondered, for others, is keeping it a thing?

YABU - A lot of hard work went into getting it. It's not unreasonable to want to keep it.

YANBU - It should have went long ago.

Yanbu. Whatever was studied the research will have moved on loads by now

I keep a few folders of modules, only because I used to scrawl during lectures then get home and painstakingly write them out in beautiful handwriting and bind them

YANBU.

I had a professor that kept all her work from high school on. 😱 That's in the states though so she had room for all that crap.

I've kept the electronic copies of large pieces of work, but I've never looked at it. There's a few creative pieces but they don't take up much room. I got rid of the rest when I left university accommodation.

Some people find it really hard to let go though.

I wouldn't keep textbooks.

How much paperwork is there? I can understand maybe keeping copies of dissertations or particularly good assignments. Can't imagine they'd take up that much space though? How many boxes are there and are they actually in the way?

Nothing kept at all now. This is since 1988 and again in 2005.

I've got a box file in the loft with the bits of my degree work that I wanted to keep. I also had a huge bagful of my old school books that my Mum kept but I weeded them all out a few years back. It really needs weeding again as I'm sure I don't need my year 7 Humanities book even though it contains my rather lovely drawing of a medieval village pre- and post enclosures.

Obviously this material is meaningful for him. We don't all live in Tidy Town, and as it is in the loft it is hardly getting in your way.

Totally out of date. I wouldn't keep it

It's a potential fire hazard too

I've kept bound copies of dissertations and theses. I've also kept a couple of key text books that sit on a bookshelf making me look clever. There are no boxes of random shite in the loft, though.

DH and I graduated 25 years ago. We haven't got any of our work and I don't remember keeping it for any length of time either.

I've still got my dissertation and some books.

I didn’t. I donated all my textbooks to the uni library on the last day of term, and burnt everything including my dissertation on bonfire night that year. I have nothing left except my degree certificate.

Nothing except my dissertation- oh and an essay about Margaret Atwood's Handmaid's Tale which I got down from the attic when DD1 did English A level and she used a couple of quotes from it

😂😂😂😂😂

I kept books and rest of my work was online, I have it saved. I look at it very rarely and feel proud! If he wants to keep it, leave him to it.

Bit dramatic but ok

You could encourage him to thin it down to only his assignments to keep for sentimental reasons.

My husband retook GCSE science to help him get on his PGCE. We still have his folder of work over a decade later. He got an A! It might be time to think about getting rid of it I guess.

Could he scan them and get rid of the paper copies

I graduated in 1985 so coming up towards 40 years!
I have kept nothing relating to my studies except my degree certificate.
I could understand maybe keeping dissertations or specific pieces of work, but beyond that is creeping into hoarding territory.

@MistyMorningMelons there's 2 suitcases plus about 5 boxes. It's out of sight in the loft, but we're hoping to downsize in the near future and it will probably have to go into one of the bedrooms until we get the loft floored in the new place.

Not unless it was ground breaking research...

It's borderline hoarding.

I think I have my (painstakingly typed on an old-fashioned word processor) dissertation from my undergrad degree in the mid-90s. Nothing else. Have recently completed a MSc and have hard copies of my dissertation and another large piece of work, digital copies of the rest.

I have all mine. Lectures, seminars, essays, dissertations. From 1989. So does DH. 1983.

YANBU. Unless they work in the exact field their degree was in (and need to refer to text books/papers), definitely bin it.

I've moved far too many times and left possessions behind, I even lost my degree during a move.

It's hoarding and it's a compulsion. I know of people who have far more than what you describe. That would be me if my life had not been so tumultuous.