Old college notes - what would you do?

I have just been given a huge box of my papers from College and Uni...1982- 1985 (Electronics HNC)and 1986 - 1989 (Materials Science degree ) vintage...CM removed them from the garage as being in the way ( which they are!) and I said I would sort them out...

CM is not making me do anything with them btw, but I sort of feel it is pointless to hang on to them..

part of me needs to keep it all and part of me feels " it was another life" which I no longer do any more...

and if I ever really needed to learn it all again (!) I could get the info from books, which I still have...

but there is 7 years of my life invested in those notes and coursework etc and I really do not want to recycle bin them ...

I still have all my Holistic Therapy , Forest School, Playwork, Adult Teaching course notes and I would not throw them away as its what I do now...

but its daft to keep the Engineering stuff I did as a previous career, isn't it ...?

I have already gone through them a few years back so there is no weeding out I could do to them.

Its a part of you, so if you've got the space keep it. When you're old and bored you'll be able to drag it back out and get all nostalgic about the good old days!

My ex is a huge hoarder and there's a lot of stuff here that isn't even mine - but his I'm storing, even now when things aren't so cool. Recently in a huge box of books (some of which are so old his father was reading them when he was a boy) we found a tonne of uni notes which turned out to be his mum's. She died a year before I met him round xmas time and even to this day Ex doesn't have a single photo of her anywhere, and never did. Just too painful.

I kept the notes for him and no matter how nasty things get I have reassured him I will NOT be destroying those. It's all he's got left of his mum, even though I know he hasn't got interest one in the subject matter (ironically the reason she took the course was to learn how to cope with him as a child!).

If you have the space, sure. If not, burn away and let it go.

My vote was to compost - my feeling is that to some extent those notes are an external part of what you did: what is important is what that part of your life contributed to what you are as a person now.
I was brought up to keep everything, and now incline against that for myself, as I have seen the amount of stuff my parents carted around every time they moved. My mother keeps finding copies of my late father's PhD thesis in different places - I know that for him and her this was a huge achievement and that's why he had all these copies made, but to me that's what he did, not what he was.
Sorry - scrambled thoughts...hope it makes some sense.

I agree D, but I look at the hand written notes and just think of the effort involved...

but am aware am becoming a pack rat and where do I draw the line? I have done so many different things that, if I keep it all I will need another house...

And yes, I still know the stuff in the notes....

CW - I think the secret is NOT TO LOOK AT THEM!

But do what? keep, compost, bin?

If they are kept in the box in the loft isn't their insulating properties quite good...

They might turn out to be important when they are looking to build the "CW library & archive..." & name it after you... :bigsmile:

I LIKE that idea , Spar...I could donate them to the national Archives on my demise.........

like the lovely people in the lovely Michael Wood Kedworth history prog...

I'm pretty sure there are still two sets of notes from my degree in the loft. I threw out almost all of it, but did well in the "Moderns" paper and wondered if I would ever do a Masters. I won't - or if I do, I won't need them, so I guess they should go - as long as I don't start reading them!

My undergraduate notes are long gone. Though I went to so few lectures that there weren't many anyway

You haven't looked at them for ages. They (if they are engineering) may be out of date. The lecturer probably only cribbed them from a textbook anyway.

You know that you don't need them. To the compost bin or recycling with them. Or I might suggest an extra option - light the stove with them.

I still have all my old notes, but being hort stuff it is useful reference material. Actually very useful, was able to brush up on cellular physiolohy recently and explain (confidently) how a new weedkiller works without chemicals.. (its iron based and hyperoxidises the cells).

does the answer lie in the bit about your current subjects where you say "I would not throw them away as it is what I do now"?

I talk as a hoarder, not a clutter clearer!

My degree was in ceramics, so a lot of the stuff I was carrying around every time we moved was boxes of pots (some embarrassingly bad, now I see them with hindsight!) So I have been selective, but could probably be even more selective. (In my case it's not a problem to know how to dispose of them as the tip has a skip for 'rubble'!!)

I've got mine (somewhere). I intended at some point to rewrite them as a book... granted, it will probably never happen, but...