In a basement of Birkbeck, University of London in May, I ploughed through a three-hour economics exam. It marked the completion of year one of a two-year masters’ programme; the first philosophy, politics and economics MSc course to be offered part-time by a British university.
I selected three questions from the paper and settled into setting out my answers on game theory, monetary policy and welfare economics. When I headed out into the sunshine on crowded Malet Street, in London’s Bloomsbury, I was satisfied I could have done no better and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.
Despite studying professional courses in my 20s and yachtmaster exams in my late 30s, it was not since my student days in the late 1970s that I had put myself under such academic pressure.