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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Keeping paperwork from degree done 40 years ago.

91 replies

Theacademicswife · 26/07/2023 15:04

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.

OP posts:
Wingedharpy · 26/07/2023 15:39

When you're clearing for your downsize move would be the perfect opportunity to dispose of this.

There is no rhyme or reason to other folks' stuff really.
"One (wo)man's junk is another (wo)man's treasure", and all that.

It's what it represents to him - the blood, sweat and tears and hard graft involved in achieving what he did.

Not quite the same, but I have a tatty ziplock freezer bag with a handwritten date sticker on it in awful wobbly writing.
It's my lovely DH's writing and was written 9 days before he was found dead in bed.
'Tis as precious as the Mona Lisa to me - it's a scruffy plastic bag to anyone else.

dayslikethese1 · 26/07/2023 15:44

I've only got a couple binders and my bound dissertation (and degree certificate of course). Binned the rest yrs ago. There's no way I will ever have the urge to go back and read my lecture notes 😅

Resembleflower · 26/07/2023 15:52

I kept my essays for a few years when I moved I binned everything. I gave my books to the ward and wrote xxx ward on them on the spine so they didn’t get stolen or sold. This was pre internet so I know they would have been well used.

hoophoophooray · 26/07/2023 15:55

I have the bound copy of my dissertation and the submission I made for my professional qualifications. That;s it

TitInATrance · 26/07/2023 15:55

YABU. Have mine from 15 years ago and look forward to reading it again sometime (my subject doesn’t date much).

londonrach · 26/07/2023 15:56

Kept it for ten years then dh ad I throw all our paperwork out when we moved home....I've kept a few textbooks as I did a medical degree as bones etc don't change so useful reference but rest went

BayandBlonde · 26/07/2023 15:56

I kept my Dissertation submission but that was it. Every few years I take a look to see how much legislation and attitudes have changed. (my paper was on Bribery and Corruption in the Construction Industry)

Daphnis156 · 26/07/2023 15:56

I have about twenty books, but there are works of literature. I do sometimes read these.
No written work or notes.

Justkeepingplatesspinning · 26/07/2023 15:57

Peony654 · 26/07/2023 15:31

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

I now lecture in my degree subject but have gradually thrown out my notes and course materials from my own degrees over several house moves. I've rarely looked at them as research has moved on so much.

Spirallingdownwards · 26/07/2023 15:59

Shred shred shred

Like in Celebrity Big Brother😂

TenderDandelions · 26/07/2023 16:11

DH still has his books and notes in our loft from his degree 20+ years ago, but on the basis that I'm too petrified of the loft to go up there, he can keep whatever he likes up there! I have no idea what's up there other than the suitcases and Christmas decorations.

He keeps threatening to make himself a mancave up there so he can escape to somewhere I can't follow.

I can't deny that there are some days I would absolutely love it if he did!

mondaytosunday · 26/07/2023 16:16

I haven't kept anything, but my 18 year old daughter has made me keep much of her work from all her school days. I've thrown out the repetitive exercise books but kept anything she illustrated a lot in or wrote in. There's a couple big plastic boxes of notebooks from secondary too. I've kept a few things from my sons time too, though not all his notebooks (she's academic, he's not).
I guess your kids will throw them out or keep a few bits when the time comes.

CoffeeWithCheese · 26/07/2023 16:18

Original degree - I kept nowt, DH still has his dissertation and gets it out to wave around and try to look impressive every now and then (pretentious title and pretentious sounding degree).

PGCE - kept very little and that stuff was discarded when I quit teaching.

Second degree (I only graduated last year and it was a vocational course so the content is needed in my job now) - I kept note sets from areas I knew were relevant to my current scope of work - so things like swallowing anatomy as I do still like to flick back and double-check the odd cranial nerve and things, and I kept our handbook for one module because it's a really really useful A-Z of ages and developmental stages for referring back to. Stuff that was not related to the area I went on into working in got binned in the paper format, but I still have typed lecture notes I can go back to if I need the information again.

FLOWER1982 · 26/07/2023 16:19

He needs to get rid. I don’t understand why people keep of of tat, even if it’s in the loft. What are you going to need it for?

Keykaty · 26/07/2023 16:19

Mine was over 40 years ago also. Lucky to be able to study at degree level those days, thanks Mum and Dad x.

The only thing I kept were my parchment and graduation photos. First in the family to do it. Sorry if I sound proud but I am!

Diospyros · 26/07/2023 16:24

I have my dissertation and a few books.

One of my DC collects old medical textbooks. It's fascinating to see how things have changed eg the psychiatry textbook published in 1967 only months before homosexuality was legalised that classifies homosexuality as a mental illness, a sixties midwifery book that recommends baby is left naked in the sun for 20 mins daily to build up vitamin D, the 1930s pre-NHS family health manual with advice on how to treat diseases at home without the need for a doctor, the pre-antibiotic treatments that seem like absolute quackery... A lot of it seems like something from the dark ages but their DF was born in 1966, their DGPs before the NHS, the DGGM before antibiotics were available, so all in living memory.

I am slightly amused that their latest vintage purchase was published in the same decade that I started university 😂TBF, some of the things I was taught about HIV and BSE probably seem pretty insane now.

MistyMorningMelons · 26/07/2023 16:24

Theacademicswife · 26/07/2023 15:27

@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.

Bloody hell. Has he kept every post-it note?!

Can you engineer a targeted leak?

I'd have to ask him to streamline to actual assignments only.

FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper · 26/07/2023 16:26

This is MN, where people are horrified that anybody might ever want to keep a card given by a loved one, congratulating their parents on their birth; or the ID wristband that was put in them when they were born - anything very small that you may think would be treasured as a precious memento of a very significant event in their life.

To some people on here, they'd probably consider it hoarding if you gave birth to twins, after only trying for one baby, and insisted on keeping both of them!

ScarlettSunset · 26/07/2023 16:26

I have my certificate and results. That's it. Long since got rid of everything else. Not much is relevant now anyway.

LobsterCrab · 26/07/2023 16:27

YANBU - the only thing I've kept from school / uni is my qualification certificates. Although I admit it hurt to chuck out my revision notes that I sweated blood over!

MistyMorningMelons · 26/07/2023 16:30

FatherJackHackettsUnderpantsHamper · 26/07/2023 16:26

This is MN, where people are horrified that anybody might ever want to keep a card given by a loved one, congratulating their parents on their birth; or the ID wristband that was put in them when they were born - anything very small that you may think would be treasured as a precious memento of a very significant event in their life.

To some people on here, they'd probably consider it hoarding if you gave birth to twins, after only trying for one baby, and insisted on keeping both of them!

Suitcases and boxes full of uni work are not the norm, by anyone's standards.

User3826 · 26/07/2023 16:31

Like others I've kept some texts because they won't go out of date others I sold at the time to recoup costs. Paperwork I binned, dissertation I kept

HellonHeels · 26/07/2023 16:32

Kept nothing except my bound thesis. Had a few of the texts (novels etc) for a fair period of time but then moved them on.

Jux · 26/07/2023 16:33

I've still got everything, but that's because it all got bundled higgledy-piggledy into boxes (with too much 'help' from dh almost the instant I finished) with loads of other stuff, all my classic books which I would dearly love to reread etc and heaven knows what else. He chucked so much of my stuff when we married, sometimes bullying me into agreeing to chuck, sometimes just doing it without my knowledge. Anyway yhe boxes have always ended up stored in places I can't get at them. So I still have all that stuff. I would like to reread my essays and have a laugh about them with dd, who writes proper essays and has just graduated herself!

Once I can get past dh's speakers, amps and other massive heavy equipment, and the washing machine, then I'll be able to go through it all .....

User3826 · 26/07/2023 16:34

Diospyros · 26/07/2023 16:24

I have my dissertation and a few books.

One of my DC collects old medical textbooks. It's fascinating to see how things have changed eg the psychiatry textbook published in 1967 only months before homosexuality was legalised that classifies homosexuality as a mental illness, a sixties midwifery book that recommends baby is left naked in the sun for 20 mins daily to build up vitamin D, the 1930s pre-NHS family health manual with advice on how to treat diseases at home without the need for a doctor, the pre-antibiotic treatments that seem like absolute quackery... A lot of it seems like something from the dark ages but their DF was born in 1966, their DGPs before the NHS, the DGGM before antibiotics were available, so all in living memory.

I am slightly amused that their latest vintage purchase was published in the same decade that I started university 😂TBF, some of the things I was taught about HIV and BSE probably seem pretty insane now.

Having had a jaundiced baby I suspect that might be where the 60s advice was coming from only rather than it being targeted to babies with jaundice they advised it for all babies!