I was left speechless at this article yesterday and I’m glad the newspaper highlighted it.

The Irish Mail on Sunday picked out this quote on June 12th 2022, describing it as a trigger warning for, quote, ‘students on the forensic science course at England’s Exeter University – just in case they haven’t realised what training to become a crime scene investigator actually involves.‘

I mean seriously, these are students who have after great consideration, consultation with teachers and possibly parents (though some of these might be mature students), finally decided to carve out a career as a forensic scientist. I despair at the thought of them ‘not realising’ that the work is traumatic, but I think the word that intrigues me the most is, ‘offensive.’ If they by some bizarre happenstance, have applied, unsupervised and are unaware that forensic science involves working on cases of sexual assault and murder, then this either points to an extremely protected to the point of neglectful upbringing (that is frankly hard to imagine), or serious questions around university preparation in our schools must be debated in both the United Kingdom and Ireland, and I fear that this is somewhat of a taboo subject.

Twenty years ago we would have laughed at this headline but it seems times have changed and not for the better.

Miriam O’Gara – The Celtress

Photo taken from The Irish Mail on Sunday, 12th June 2022.