I’ve been asked if I want to become an FRSA.
This is not, note not, as screamingly posh as becoming an FRS.
Whachuthink?
Update – so, thanks for the opinions. Not something I’ll be going forward with then.
I’ve been asked if I want to become an FRSA.
This is not, note not, as screamingly posh as becoming an FRS.
Whachuthink?
Update – so, thanks for the opinions. Not something I’ll be going forward with then.
Accept it! Deffo!
If A stands for arts etc, it’s a big effing deal. Grab it with both hands
Is this so they can throw you out later, hater?
Are you required to make a “donation”?
I quite regularly get invited to submit papers to certain journals, the fee mentioned is one that I pay to them, not vice versa.
Whatever next? Vermine?
“Whatever next? Vermine?”
If Tim got vermine and the Spud didn’t I’d laugh myself silly. Am I right in thinking the general public can nominate possible peers?
Of course you have to take it, next stop Masonic lodge!
Do you want to be in the same club as :
David Lammy
Glenys Kinnock
Ed Davey
Danny Dorling
AC Grayling
Samit Patel
Ebony Rainford-Brent?
On the other hand, Heinz Wolff was also FRSA
The list of present/past members is extraordinarily eclectic. If it is true that
, how did anyone on the list above, let alone Karl Marx, get in?
I got one of those a few years back, possibly even 10 or more. Give us money and we’ll give you letters after you name. I didn’t.
You can just apply online, without an invitation: https://www.thersa.org/fellowship/join
To be an FRS was once a wonderful thing – but The Royal has been declining for some time, in the sense of being politicised, even morally corrupted. It’s awfully sad.
If you pay annually, you’ll save 4p compared to the monthly donation.
Don’t do it. Gongs, baubles and letters after your name are the way the Establishment controls people. Be your own man and don’t seek the approval of nonentities.
The FRSA is very different now to twenty years ago. They’ve been trying to reinvent themselves and part of that is throwing the doors open to anyone of any note (and many people who aren’t) provided they want to “collaborate” to “solve problems”. My experience is the proudest FRSAs are the kind of people who, in its original incarnation, would never have been invited – and they’re unfailingly (in my limited but not negligible sample size) up-themselves Grade A A-holes. Those who stick FRSA behind their name now it’s basically a club anyone can apply to join remind me of those insufferables who stick their Oxbridge MA in the CV and think it looks clever. (Special gall reserved for those who list their BA and MA separately.)
Also suspect you’d be right out of place in terms of social and economic viewpoint but you might enjoy setting the cat loose among the progressive pigeons.
You’ve been asked to join the Florida Roofing and Sheet Metal Contractors Association?
“I would never join any club that would have the likes of me as a member.”
” They’ve been trying to reinvent themselves and part of that is throwing the doors open to anyone of any note (and many people who aren’t) provided they want to “collaborate” to “solve problems”.
Sounds like the UK branch office of the World Economic Forum.
The obvious question is ‘Would it be fun.’ Not sure what you think is fun, Tim.
I’d probably be too bone-idle to bother.
I agree with MBE, most of the people who list FRSA after their names are people you don’t want to associate with.
Do it for the laughs, not the recognition.
It probably has less barriers to joining than your local library and certainly less than your local golf club.
It’s not an honour. The building is a mess and lousy for using as a meeting place. The restaurant isn’t bad, but is in the cellars.
And, as with the comments above, the only people who are proud to be members are toxic Pooters – Spud would be in there like a shot and announcing it to the world as if he had been awarded some great honour.
Hi Tim. It is cesspit of leftie ideas and behavioural nudge proponents. Chris Snowdon wouldn’t join and neither should you.
“those insufferables who stick their Oxbridge MA in the CV and think it looks clever”
You might have a chip on your shoulder and feel inferior but it is a factual truth. Would you prefer people to tell lies on their CV ?
I think one of Tom’s greatest insights is to call someone out for committing Worstall’s fallacy, for saying something is terribly bad without taking account of what we already do to stop the bad outcomes from this bad thing being complained about.
It happens in the US when they opine about relative poverty, and in the UK when some declare we must provide reparations for slavery and colonialism (why the frig then does compulsory and voluntary foreign aid come to more than the reparations being demanded? ).
Oh, I would accept the nomination – if there is a government funding element of the RSA it’s tiny, and the dudes who put you forward think you’re a good ‘un.
Up to you, Tim. But all they want is your fee…
I read the ‘A’ as accountants and was puzzled. 😉
I have to thank Tim for bringing this to my attention. I have today requested information on how to become a fellow.
Although in this day & age I would have thought self describing as a fella would be perfectly adequate.
“You might have a chip on your shoulder and feel inferior but it is a factual truth. Would you prefer people to tell lies on their CV ?”
I got my invitation to trot up and collect my MA. I turned it down. Proudly BA.
I didn’t begrudge my ex-classmates for getting theirs – would have gone to the event for the reunion alone but something else cropped up – but those who stick it as a separate ‘qualification’ on their CV, when it just reflects a now rather outdated honorary-type (I think you’re just supposed to show you haven’t shown ‘bad character’ since you first graduated but in practice I don’t think they check this is any meaningful way) system that’s arguably hung around too long, are prats.
And I would love to say it’s fooling noone – obviously wouldn’t fool anyone else who has been through the system. I don’t know if it fools computerised CV scanners. But just like this FRSA business, it fools an awful lot of the general public.
FRSA is to FRS as …
MRSA is to MRS?
Diogenes: “those insufferables who stick their Oxbridge MA in the CV and think it looks clever”
You might have a chip on your shoulder and feel inferior but it is a factual truth. Would you prefer people to tell lies on their CV ?
I think that MBE’s point here may have been that the ‘upgrade’ from BA to MA involves a ceremony but no additional scholarship and, in consequence, such folk are representing themselves as having a greater academic provenance than they can properly claim.
The question here is… Do they want you in so badly they waive the fee?
If they don’t.. bugg’rem..
Unless, of course, you want to do a round of foxing the henhouse and have some fun with that.
@TMB
Yes, thanks, exactly. Also people’s potted biographies, “awarded my MA in 19xx” when, incongruously, they just said they were busy with something else altogether in a totally different corner of the planet. Blergh. It would be like someone getting an honorary PhD – which is fine by me, though personally I’d turn such a thing down it isn’t like anyone will ever give me the chance – then demanding to be addressed as “doctor”, which is where my tolerance ends.
Basically, an Oxford MA is an award to recognise that you were alive.
“You are going to meet the king of Liechtenstein, wearing a medal you got for being alive in the year 2000.”
Douglas (or should I call you “jgh”?): Good quip.
Tim: Only do it for the craic. If there’s none of that, why bother?
Loving the chips on shoulders here
Relishing my privilege and the annoyance it causes. Surely the question should be why newer universities got it all wrong
You don’t just have to be alive to collect your MA, you need to be solvent enough to afford the fee which, despite having been stuck at £40* for a century or so, was once a significant hurdle. R J Yeatman lacked funds at the relevant time, and so described himself in 1066 and All That as “Failed M.A., etc. Oxon”.
* that’s the current amount, but I seem to recall it being £25, 45 years ago. The college paid it for us in any event.