Uni students... risking the wrath of mn..

[redgin]

Firstly, I have had 2 children go through uni and out the other side and I fully understand the emotional and financial aspects.

But

They leave home, expect to be treated as adults (rightly) and have their first taste of independence. After a summer debating the risks of going to uni this year in the middle of a pandemic why are they surprised they have to isolate in their rented accommodation like anyone else? That they have to follow the rules like the rest of the law abiding?

IMO they chose to go, they couldn't have expected normal, so get on with it.

I don’t see why this is the government’s fault as opposed to the universities?

As far as I’m aware the government haven’t said all learning should be online with students forced to be in halls as opposed to at home have they? The universities were opened but they had the choice to define their own learning, and it is the universities who, once the students had arrived, changed the goalposts and made all the learning online and then started locking up students with security guards at the entrances etc.

If the government had announced that none of the universities would open or that all students would be required to stay home for the foreseeable future there would have been absolute outcry over how students were missing out on the opportunity to start uni, to be independent for the first time.

I don’t agree with how the students are being treated but I don’t think there was a right answer here.

@middleager

There's a startling lack of empathy from some posters.

That's an evergreen post, some humans have no empathy in any situation, sadly!

In defence of students many students were told that they could not defer. The majority are part way through courses and it would be extremely difficult to suddenly take a gap year. They've signed leases long ago on accomodation. They may not have a suitable quiet space to study at home with decent internet.

Our local school is only sending people home who actually sit next to a covid case - they aren't sending whole year groups to self isolate. Have the universities who are doing mass self isolation got it right? I honestly don't know, I suspect there's a balance between our schools approach and some of the universities approaches.

dd knows that at some point she will probably need to self isolate for a couple of weeks. She's fine with that idea, we know it will be a bit shit, but she'll be ok, she is in a small household.

It must be really hard for those in large blocks that seem not to have a plan at present. As we saw on the cruise ships - it could be a really lengthy period that they need to self isolate for unless the accomodation providers can get a grip on who needs to stay in and who doesn't. I'm concerned for those students. I'm also concerned that the way this is being done is going to jeopardise being at university this year for all, with massive knock on effects through other years, not only in university but all of the industries reliant on graduates coming through the doors well trained.

I know it's chat but YABU,

This generation has been lied to about going to uni left right and centre. They have been robbed of the last part of their A levels - and abused by the government with the charade of grades (which even of accurate are a representation of what the would have got if they completed the curriculum - they still lose because they don't have the complete curriculum),

Universities were forced to lie and encourage students to come because the stark truth is they'd have all gone bust if not! You can't lose a year of students. They've been cornered into a situation where they have to lie though. They've had to pretend that online courses are worth the same money as face to face. I have an academic friend who's says they couldn't afford for anyone to defer and weren't allowing it.

He kids weren't told they'd be imprisoned -. Noone can consent to that. Some of the halls of residence have security guards on the doors! I heard a girl on the radio who was losing it the other day, she also said they had no WiFi.

If I had a DC in that year i'd be getting them out pronto, and work any job they can get for three years, then go back (like they did in the war).

If I were a lawyer i'd be preparing to sue unis for the fees back :-( (I think their hand was forced though by government).

I don’t see why this is the government’s fault as opposed to the universities?

Shall I start? If the government had put in place an effective test and trace system there would be no need to lock up entire blocks of students. They promised us 'world-beating' months ago. I'd settle for competent.

HE is a massive sector and a millionish 18 years olds have come to Uni this year (numbers are up by the way, including students from WP backgrounds - as actually, there's little casualised work and no travel, so gap years staples are not available). Not all of the sector is locking students down in this way. It, like schools, has a threshold for what is considered an 'outbreak' and in some Universities they have reached that threshold.

Universities will offer face-to-face where they can and lots of wellbeing support.

[quote countrygirl99]@Tomatoesneedtoripen what free online courses will train our future doctors, nurses, dentists, engineers, teachers.
What "life experience" do you think sitting at home will give them.
Jeez, I despair.[/quote]
dont be obtuse
these free courses were to tied them over until they could go to university

YABU and very lacking in empathy. I feel really sorry and worried for students atm, especially first years. I can't be bothered to go into my reasons why because they are obvious.

@Eng123

Firstly a lot of universities are offering fave to face teaching. Every bodies experience of the world is being impacted by corona, I would imagine that some close friendships are being formed albeit in different environments from their parents. Closing universities for years isn't an option so that leaves doing the best we can with what we have. Missing freshers week is not ruining someone's long term opportunities. This first bite of the adult world is probably a little too real this year but they will pull through.

I have a DC in second year and one who has just graduated.

I am interested that you think there is a lot of face to face teaching-
Between my DC and all of their friends at Uni's all over the UK I do not know any that are getting face to face teaching.

Oh and I know academics in a few disciplines - all of whom were preparing to teach this academic year online from June

It was criminal to encourage them back. Either:

a) the universities had put lot of work into ensuring content could be taught online - in which case they should not have encoyraged students to move/pay accomodation etc. They should have been clear that a good quality of teaching could be achieved at a distance

OR

b) they did not put that preparation work in, so the course being delivered now is ill prepared and ill suited to online learning. In which case universities should be giving refunds for not delivering the servie they promised.

Universites have started to want the best of all worlds.

For years they have wanted to be treated like a business when it suits them, but without any of the true competition of business. Now they want everyone to believe they could not have predicted such a lockdown scenario, whilst simultaneously claiming they have been well prepared for it by moving learning to online.

I'm with OP on this one. So many myths.

Firstly, university fees are for the teaching, not the "student experience" The idea that universities should refund fees because students can't party in the first few weeks is absurd. What do you think pays for the academics and equipment to run online courses? It's been a massive job over the summer to convert face to face courses to online learning and to plan how this is going to be delivered, frequently over multiple time zones. And lets not forget universities are having to run multiple scenarios in their planning. At the moment the biggest headache is how to back end the necessary face to face teaching e.g. laboratories and practical sessions. Most institutions are planning to run these later in the year when the flu season has passed. But sessions that would normally be timetabled across a year now have to be rammed into a short and uncertain period of weeks. In some cases this will mean having to rent extra space to accommodate classes. This is not cheap and, given a lot of income from the lucrative foreign student market has been lost, some institutions will probably go to the wall.

And the there's the idea that this was not expected. The second wave has been predicted since the first one peaked. We always knew it would be September/October. Any student who is bright enough to pass A levels should also be sensible enough to read the news and factor this into their decisions and planning.

It's also worth pointing out that this isn't necessarily the disaster for all students that has been portrayed. My DD is a shy, socially awkward child. She was dreading freshers week. Being in semi lockdown has given her the time and space to develop friendships in her halls bubble. The last time I heard from her they were baking biscuits and sharing Spotify playlists. She went into halls with her eyes wide open having considered carefully the options and possible consequences of a further lockdown.

One thing on this thread- why is everyone banging on about face to face teaching as if this is something reasonable that the mean old unis are denying students. Face to face teaching at its best at the moment is basically students sitting apart from each other (SD) with masks on! It's not possible to keep staff and other students safe without this- we have an outbreak at our uni that is spreading like wildfire round households/social areas, but not on campus at all- because we have a really Covid-19 secure campus.

To achieve that we have to have at least half fewer students on campus, spaced out teaching, a private testing service (paid for by the uni, so it's not all money, money money) and compulsory masks. Without that I would be at high risk of getting covid as several of my students have already informed me they are getting tests/have symptoms and so on. I'm not terrified as the facilities for face to face are great, if I were in a school I would be off sick with the stress of it.

Also- online doesn't mean just watch a video, it means interacting online, teaching online, that's time-consuming! I'm offering, in addition to my face to face teaching, several online sessions, plus online office hours, plus any appointments with freshers when they want them. They have to be prepared for, as well as video lectures recorded which takes ages. People seem to be using 'online' as a shorthand for 'not being taught' which they also do for schools and it's so frustrating as setting up and delivering real-time online teaching is tiring and time-consuming. Online teaching also depends on good broadband for the student, and between 25-30% don't have that.

The question is then- if both online and face to face aren't as good as 'in the past' and they don't really need to be there, should they have stayed in the family home? For some, in nice family homes with good broadband, that would have been an option and if you still want your child to come home, you could ask for a refund on hall fees and drive them back, I think political pressure is going to be applied on this front, which I agree with. Many students didn't want to stay home, even in a pandemic and there's a lot to be said for getting out there and taking independent steps, even if life isn't as great as in the past (and I think some mumsnetters must have misty-eyes about how great freshers normally is, I have students crying every year who are homesick, overwhelmed or hate their course).

Teaching fees- my students are getting what they signed up for but within the safety parameters of a pandemic. Just like office meetings aren't the fun experiences with donuts that they used to be, but they are still important, teaching them skills and I don't think (myself) we were wrong to try to bring the students back, the only mistake might have been doing this in Sept, but if I understand the scientists correctly- whenever we let the students out, there will be a rise in Covid, a third wave if we get over the second, so short of keeping them living with their parents for several years, I am not sure what's the alternative.

The issue was the money grabbing nature of effectively making people relocate. With courses all online many students could have studied from home- or- anywhere- not expensive student accommodation.
It’s also no worse in terms of density than many many massive housing estates, but students are much easier to police....

@AlternativePerspective

I don’t see why this is the government’s fault as opposed to the universities?

As far as I’m aware the government haven’t said all learning should be online with students forced to be in halls as opposed to at home have they? The universities were opened but they had the choice to define their own learning, and it is the universities who, once the students had arrived, changed the goalposts and made all the learning online and then started locking up students with security guards at the entrances etc.

If the government had announced that none of the universities would open or that all students would be required to stay home for the foreseeable future there would have been absolute outcry over how students were missing out on the opportunity to start uni, to be independent for the first time.

I don’t agree with how the students are being treated but I don’t think there was a right answer here.

It's really complex but I'm afraid the majority of blame should lie with the government. The move to online teaching at some universities has happened for two reasons:

• They've been told by Public Health England or their local public health team because there has been a spike of cases. Believe me when I say the number of cases being reported in the press are not accurate. They're much higher

-or they physically don't have the space to teach in a socially distanced way because the government made universities honour all offers after they cocked up A level results. They don't have the space or staff to double up in teaching either as most universities had to make mass redundancies this summer.

Much of the above couple not be planned for.

We really can't win. Earlier in the year the mere mention of online teaching was met with threads upon threads berating lazy academics and poor quality teaching. Now offering f2f teaching makes us irresponsible 🤷🏼‍♀️

@Yogatomorrow

I wonder about food. When people are self isolating in hotels, the food is prepared and dropped off by the hotel. That's obviously not going to happen.

If students are locked in one flat together and sharing facilities for cooking (and maybe the bathroom), then if one has CV and it is passed on then the others may still be contagious after 2 weeks. Another alternative is that they are ordering food, which will be extortionate. Also how is the food delivered?

There is a big difference between self isolation at home and a student halls. I'd be pretty pissed off.

At the university where I work we have provisions in place.

If a student has symptoms they are moved to an empty flat while awaiting a test. If positive they stay in the flat. Other students may join them in the flat if they too have tested positive.

If they need food, they are asked to buy a supermarket voucher and email a list of what is required and it will be delivered to them the next day.

OP your post is one of the most un-empathetic posts I've seen on this subject. Your kids have gone through uni fine, so you think everyone else should now have to suck up a difficult situation. Students were told throughout the summer that there would be some semblance of normality in term one. They get to uni and then have to isolate in a poky room. I don't know if you lived in halls yourself ever, but if I'd had to isolate in mine I would have been thoroughly miserable.

What did you expect this year's crop of students to do? A lot of universities weren't allowing mass deferrals, and besides that what would these young people do for a year if they did defer? They couldn't go travelling, a lot of jobs that they would normally do are not available this year. So what would you have them do? Your post is basically saying they brought this on themselves which is of course a ridiculous viewpoint.

DS has gone off to uni and I don't regret it. The vast majority will see it as part of their experience and get through it, because even if they get ill, it will not be serious for them due to their age, and at least they are doing something - the last six months have been far harder with A levels mucked up, no chances of jobs in the summer, no opportunity to travel, and with huge unemployment on the way for society at large, no hope of getting a job. What 18 year old would choose to stay home with that prospect? It's the kids resitting and stuck home with their parents that I feel sorry for, or the ones who didn't make it to uni and have to reapply.
In my experience the things you can't get through are the things where you have been singled out for particular treatment. They are all in it together with their peers and I think overall they will deal with it better than being stuck at home doing nothing and feeling left behind.

@OneFiveFour

It was criminal to encourage them back. Either:

a) the universities had put lot of work into ensuring content could be taught online - in which case they should not have encoyraged students to move/pay accomodation etc. They should have been clear that a good quality of teaching could be achieved at a distance

OR

b) they did not put that preparation work in, so the course being delivered now is ill prepared and ill suited to online learning. In which case universities should be giving refunds for not delivering the servie they promised.

Universites have started to want the best of all worlds.

For years they have wanted to be treated like a business when it suits them, but without any of the true competition of business. Now they want everyone to believe they could not have predicted such a lockdown scenario, whilst simultaneously claiming they have been well prepared for it by moving learning to online.

No, no, no to all of this!

The government has forced us to act like businesses- universities did not support the increase in tuition fees. We had no choice.

All academics I know were told to prepare for 3 scenarios- normal, blended and online. And we've done that. That meant working ridiculous hours and not having any break over the summer. We're all completely burnt out and term has only just started.
I'm currently teaching f2f but I have everything ready should I be moved online .

We are prepared but we couldn't prepare for the government making us honour all offers meaning we now don't have the space to offer as much f2f teaching.
We can't help it if Public Health England tell us to move online.

They've been told by Public Health England or their local public health team because there has been a spike of cases. Believe me when I say the number of cases being reported in the press are not accurate. They're much higher this is totally true, at my university, having been a very low covid area all summer, we have a big and not yet contained outbreak. We know from private testing that this is not in the community, not the schools and not on campus. I don't think persisting with face to face teaching this week or next is necessarily a good idea.

Going to uni in a pandemic is going to be unexpected, but I think it's the rational choice for most students, and I think most moving away from home was probably the right choice for most (with some exceptions and I hope they will be refunded halls on a moral level). Having a huge outbreak by week 1 wasn't actually what we expected, it seems predictable now, but Boris was telling us all to eat out and go to shops and restaurants just three weeks earlier- this is a very unstable situation.

In Scotland, students were told not to go to any hospitailty venues over the weekend, on threat of being expelled from their course. No other section of society has been treated like this. Can you imagine the uproar if all over 65s were told they could not go to any pubs, cafes and restaraunts to meet a friend tis weekend (we are not allowed in each others homes, remember) on threat of losing their pension?

It is unacceptable to single out a section of society and police them like criminals. The treatment of students is the thin end of the wedge. No care workers allowed to meet their friends outside their household at the weekend? No hospital staff? There are many sections of society that could be singled out and subject to stricter measures. Do you think that is an acceptable way to treat law abiding citizens?

I got stuck in my uni accommodation in my first year due to snow. No lectures, not able to go out because the roads were so bad. Think I was stuck for 10 days in the end and I found it really hard as an adult who has lived alone.

I really feel for these kids who are starting this year. It's grim, they're paying a fortune for substandard teaching and many have been told they can't go home.

Agree op and I’ve put one through uni, it’s isolation for 2 weeks like thousands of other people are doing right now, some totally alone. The hysteria on the other thread boggled my brain, everybody whipping each other into a frenzy. One poster claiming it was like WW1 for the isolating students was particularly dramatic. ExH owns a security company who cover 2 unis, all students are having their needs met, no one is starving or locked in.

it’s isolation for 2 weeks like thousands of other people are doing right now, some totally alone They were singled out as a group over the weekend in Scotland, the principle of which is so wrong. That people refuse to see that is scary.

We dropped our first year uni DC off last Sunday. By Thursday someone in the flat needed a test. It came back confirmed yesterday. My DC was tested yesterday. Walked 4.5miles there and 4.5 miles back with a temperature and sweating profusely.A girl in the flat below was offered a test 7.5 miles away at 5.30pm so had to walk 7.5 miles back in the dark. No one had their temperature taken when they arrived in the flat. No one was offered testing at the start of term. Each flat forms a bubble so they were told that they do not need to socially distance within the flat. It really seems as if either the university or the government wanted them to spread Covid amongst themselves!

On a positive note, 18 year olds are actually very resilient. They are pooling food and cooking for the boy who feels really poorly. He is bed bound but ok. They are treating it like an adventure and it is an amazing life lesson and bonding experience. Obviously the internet means that they are connected to family and other friends. I arranged a food delivery for Saturday from Sainsbury's. They were really sympathetic and had a protocol in place for delivering safely to quarantined students. All the students have money at the moment as it is the start of term and no money is being spent on going out. I'm not sure why parents are needing to drive miles to drop off food parcels. Surely this was anticipated and a student should , at the start of term, have a few days supplies of food in place. If they don't, they will have to share with other flat members, sort out money and organize themselves better in future.

These kids have been home since March. Hopefully the academic side can tick over and they are at least becoming independent. Maybe it was the plan to infect them all, keep them isolated and away from grandparents and then next term they can have more normal lessons? It isn't an ideal circumstance. My DC is healthy and super fit so we do not have the worry of him being high risk. We wouldn't have let him go to uni this year if he had any form of risk. The situation is not ideal but they have to get on with life. I don't feel that sorry for them. I feel far more sorry for the young children who were stuck in flats during lockdown with no access to education.