From my Substack diary no.179, Wednesday, 10th. June 2026

My Morning Thoughts of yesterday seem to be playing on my mind this morning. How do we update the knowledge we gained at university later in life, should we wish to do so? I have found it to be easy, difficult or impossible, depending on the topic and whether or not I kept up with knowledge for work purposes, to train others or to keep up with my peers.

I left the London School of Economics in 1979 and DeMontfort University in 2004. I immensely enjoyed my academic endeavours, although in general I think I was better equipped to do so second time around. Yesterday a speech reported in The Guardian triggered a memory of psychology lectures and debates at DeMontfort and specifically the idea of our ‘worldview’, essentially a system of beliefs and values with an internal coherence. This morning, I find myself wondering this: how do I update that knowledge? I do not have access to a university or to any academic library. It is as if my knowledge is frozen in time and, for all I know, some of what I learned may be considered outdated.

I have come to understand that my job and the relationships I built with colleagues across the country compelled me to continuously question and update my knowledge. I found myself to be good at technical presentations and training for colleagues, politicians, decision makers and so on, whether it was in London or across the South West. I was a populariser of science and people sought my knowledge and insights into professional ‘work’ matters, essentially energy, climate change and sustainability. I felt compelled to be ahead of the game and, thanks to my university education, I knew how to research and intuitively knew what was factual and useful – and what was not. I was relied upon to provide details of a new renewable energy technology or a new Government initiative to take people out of fuel poverty – and hundreds of other topics. It was essential that I did not make mistakes or give partial or misleading information. I researched and checked the hell out of it.

So, where my university education and career overlapped I was fine, and remain so today – despite retirement. However, those aspects of my academic endeavours that were not part of my job, but which remain of interest, are left frozen in time. It seems to me that it would be good if, having attended university, there would be some means of updating references, providing access to new material and perhaps even the option to engage with others from time to time. In other words, perhaps we should see a university education as being for life rather than for just three years.