Why are we okay with students being locked up in their dorms?

[JKRowlingIsMyQueen]

I just heard about the students in Manchester who are not allowed to leave their dorms.

Why on earth is this allowed to happen? So the rest of us who are not students are allowed to get pissed in a pub, get on a plane and travel abroad and back etc., but if you are a student you are not allowed to LEAVE your dorms?

What science are these kind of rules following? The science of Boris needing more ammo to blame young people for spreading the virus?

I'm losing hope.

They've been lied to and used to prop up Universities and housing income.

This.

@noblegiraffe

Entire halls of residence are self isolating?

Entire schools of children have been sent home to self isolate. No fuss about those?

They are at home with their parents, university students are away from home in an unfamiliar town without any friends or family and suddenly have to stay in their halls of residence. The situation in schools is not good but it's not comparable.

I just typed half of an epic post cant and its much too long and boring to finish 😀

But at its most basic i do agree with you but with the best will in the world schools and colleges and universities are all going to have outbreaks, its how they are dealt with that i think some people differ

I would be happy if students were advised to self isolate...just not Necessarily every student in a 400 bedroom block.

Anybody worried about a student in Manchester please message me and I will try to help.

Some of the attitudes on here to people's children, who are only just really starting out in the adult world (and hell I'm sure everyone flounders a bit when they're just turned 18) are fucking shameful. Basically gloating and demanding they're locked up because, basically "they're not ME"

It's one of the Leeds unis with the photographs of the padlocked fire gates - were all over twitter earlier today - believe the fire service have now had it drawn to their attention.

I think some people think it's like the glossy brochures in all halls of residence. Some are still really shit - I know the hall I was in, which is largely still in use today at a RG university - the room was pretty much the size where you could almost touch both walls if you stood with your arms outstretched. Locked in somewhere like that when you're new to the university and haven't made a support social network yet (because you're not really allowed to) - I'm desperately concerned about the potential impact in terms of things like suicide attempts as the term wears on.

The universities (at an organisational management/marketing level before any of the lecturers on here take offence) have really shafted the students. I'm a current student (doing a second degree) and most of the students who've moved away from home to come to my course signed their house contracts for this year back in Jan/Feb - so they were kind of fucked either way with the accommodation costs thing. The uni though did lie through their fucking teeth - pushed and pushed that students HAD to be on campus, that there'd be a fair chunk of face-to-face teaching, facilities would be open, business as usual and it was only going to be the large scale, rammed in a lecture hall being talked at for an hour, lectures online for the year. Students were asking if they needed to come to campus or if they could stay at home and study there and were being told time and time again by people as high up as the VC (I was on a web Q+A where it was specifically asked at least once) that no, they needed to come to campus, plenty would be face-to-face.

Timetables came up the other day - think I have 9 hours of face-to-face timetabling scheduled until Christmas over the space of three days. Library is still closed and reopening arrangements haven't been agreed - at present it's just running click and collect Argos style, no study areas are open yet - so nowhere to bloody sit and work while you're ON campus if you live any distance away. There's literally the SU crappy death diner open and that's it - no freshers events apart from zoom quizzes and some courses have absolutely no face to face teaching at all. While online does suit me a fair bit - but is boring as hell and pretty damned soul destroying - I have my home and my family and I'm missing out on the joy of commuting - if I had been pressured into that I NEEDED to be on campus and I was young and unconfident - I would be pissed off, and if it was my kid locked up in those halls - I'd be rioting. If the students protest - I'm joining them - I don't begrudge my tuition fees for the year (my department staff are amazing) - but I do think the universities lied to get the footfall and residence figures up on campus.

No, I am saying this was entirely predictable, and the government should not have encouraged students to return.

Exactly like the return to school causing chaos was entirely predictable.
However, if a parent wails that they can't shut down the school because 'think of the children', despite Covid cases, that is obviously wrong.

The Government's strategy IS wrong, absolutely. They - and we - should have predicted the consequences. But since the consequences are here, the shutting down of halls of residence to stop the spread of infection IS a defensible decision, as shutting down a school with many cases is.

I think many of us remember how daunting and isolating starting university could feel even when you were doing ok, had friends and could mix normally. There is no resilience test for university and of course many attending will not be massively resilient and some will be very vulnerable, that's just reality. I also wonder what is going on if someone is having problems with a flatmate and is locked in with them.

The students were having raves, there is a video on BBC and one of the students who are locked up said that there were huge raves, and that a large number of the students in the halls now had coronavirus and so I am really not sure what people think the university should have done. You get primary school kids being sent home with c19 and being asked to quarantine and this is the same thing. I do sympathise because it is hard but I also know from experience that many 18 year olds on freshers week have brain aberrations and temporarily display the common sense of a donut and if they flouted rules by having huge raves, and a number now have covid and are a danger to others (and yes covid is dangerous) then them all being asked to quarantine is a logical and foreseeable consequence. Tough as it may be.

The laws state you can meet with up to 6 people from multiple households. Why do students have to keep to a different set of rules

Id forgotten this

The 6 random people rule has Never made sense to me

@DominaShantotto

Some of the attitudes on here to people's children, who are only just really starting out in the adult world (and hell I'm sure everyone flounders a bit when they're just turned 18) are fucking shameful. Basically gloating and demanding they're locked up because, basically "they're not ME"

It's one of the Leeds unis with the photographs of the padlocked fire gates - were all over twitter earlier today - believe the fire service have now had it drawn to their attention.

I think some people think it's like the glossy brochures in all halls of residence. Some are still really shit - I know the hall I was in, which is largely still in use today at a RG university - the room was pretty much the size where you could almost touch both walls if you stood with your arms outstretched. Locked in somewhere like that when you're new to the university and haven't made a support social network yet (because you're not really allowed to) - I'm desperately concerned about the potential impact in terms of things like suicide attempts as the term wears on.

The universities (at an organisational management/marketing level before any of the lecturers on here take offence) have really shafted the students. I'm a current student (doing a second degree) and most of the students who've moved away from home to come to my course signed their house contracts for this year back in Jan/Feb - so they were kind of fucked either way with the accommodation costs thing. The uni though did lie through their fucking teeth - pushed and pushed that students HAD to be on campus, that there'd be a fair chunk of face-to-face teaching, facilities would be open, business as usual and it was only going to be the large scale, rammed in a lecture hall being talked at for an hour, lectures online for the year. Students were asking if they needed to come to campus or if they could stay at home and study there and were being told time and time again by people as high up as the VC (I was on a web Q+A where it was specifically asked at least once) that no, they needed to come to campus, plenty would be face-to-face.

Timetables came up the other day - think I have 9 hours of face-to-face timetabling scheduled until Christmas over the space of three days. Library is still closed and reopening arrangements haven't been agreed - at present it's just running click and collect Argos style, no study areas are open yet - so nowhere to bloody sit and work while you're ON campus if you live any distance away. There's literally the SU crappy death diner open and that's it - no freshers events apart from zoom quizzes and some courses have absolutely no face to face teaching at all. While online does suit me a fair bit - but is boring as hell and pretty damned soul destroying - I have my home and my family and I'm missing out on the joy of commuting - if I had been pressured into that I NEEDED to be on campus and I was young and unconfident - I would be pissed off, and if it was my kid locked up in those halls - I'd be rioting. If the students protest - I'm joining them - I don't begrudge my tuition fees for the year (my department staff are amazing) - but I do think the universities lied to get the footfall and residence figures up on campus.

It’s a weird hatred of young people who are really vulnerable. Disgusting.

@Mooballs

It is shocking. These will be 18 yr olds who are miles away from home for the 1st time. Some of them will really struggle with this.

I was 17 when I went to University. Being locked in -with or without the fire doors locked would have made me very very unwell mentallly and emotionally to pay £9,000 plus for the experience -some will leave and never return.

My eldest had already said -they are NOT going to university, in a few years. They will do a degree but live at home. She would not risk being 200 miles from her family and unable to survive on those crappy food packages.

Oh and unlock the fire doors -now!!

Students with mh problems should be able to seek help. However, the vast majority of the students at my university on freshers week were out getting very drunk and doing a lot of dancing in clubs and raves and there was a fair bit of random shagging going on too.

My sons lectures haven’t started yet

If he has nothing related to his degree he could study them I can see he will get bored. Are there no reading lists? But soon there will be plenty of material to study in any case.

It's not that I am not sympathetic. But we as a nation need our university students to get a good education and be the future of the country. The fact that partying and socialising will be more difficult shouldn't take away from this pressing need.

@madastrees well if it's on the news it must be true. But not the experience of most students THIS year.
Students are not a separate group. Rules apply to them the same as every other adult. But hey, let's just lock them up. What could possibly go wrong ?

It’s a weird hatred of young people who are really vulnerable. Disgusting It really isn't. It is trying to deal with a bunch of very over excited young adults away from home for the first time who understandably want to live it up but can't at the moment.

This whole debacle is exposing the damaging phenomenon of student as consumer (initiated by tuition fee increases). When I taught undegraduates recently (typical PhD gig) it was clear that many students expected and demanded to know what they were doing, and how and why and when - aka a continuation of the A Level assessment system. Some became highly anxious when this wasn’t forthcoming. Of course this completely undermines the enquiry-based nature of a university education. Within the university bureaucracy, there was also an obsession with the National Student Survey and “ feedback forms” , fixation with making subject content relatable rather than challenging, degree grade inflation, the rise in unconditional offers. Most people in higher education have understood this to be a problem for a long time: the idea that, because they’re consumers, we should be giving students what they want, when in fact a university education should be about giving students what they do not know and have never known that they would want.

In short, nurturing independent enquiry and knowledge, which is often a challenging and uncomfortable process. very different from purchasing a knowable product (a degree) for 9k a year.

Universities have embraced the commoditisation of education and its become integral to their survival. Imo it’s increasingly turned the whole sector into a sham. Covid is bringing it all to head: the simmering entitlement over the high tuition fees and universities’ emphasis on the ‘student experience’ which raked in money for them and undermined academic freedom in the process.

@madastrees

Students with mh problems should be able to seek help. However, the vast majority of the students at my university on freshers week were out getting very drunk and doing a lot of dancing in clubs and raves and there was a fair bit of random shagging going on too.

What a load of rubbish.

They have been shafted. Students should only be isolating it someone in their flat has symptoms/positive. There is absolutely no need to isolate if no one in your flat has symptoms/a positive result.

People with locked firedoors, or wiped door cards are not safe, not only that they are being held prisoner.

I live in a flat, what they have done is the same as locking up our entire building if one person in one of the flats tested positive.

noteven

Sorry

I really must explain things, i seem to expect people to be psychic

Ds1 isnt at a lockdown university, and he will be living off campus...but he still hasnt started his lectures 😀

My young people will one day be your doctor or vet. My eldest has always wanted to stay and support the NHS as she loves it. She will defend it with her last breathe. But she has now said she doesn't like her country and may leave. These students are our future and people are showing them such contempt. One day they will vote with their feet.

Locking people up who are not charged criminals is not ok!! No matter their age, gender, race, or background-it is not fucking ok!!

In DS's flatlet, one has dropped out, before class started and before DS tested positive, purely because of anxiety. It's tragic, for the student. I am sympathetic to anyone with MH. DS is also highly strung, but at 21 is now capable of coping where he would not have been able if younger.

I don't see a conspiracy by government or universities to tie young adults into binding contracts. But deciding to study and pay for university IS entering a contract.

@mumsneedwine it is a student from this year talking on a video on the news. I have friends whose children were students last year in Manchester and in the same way were telling their parents about all the secret raves going on. But hey, let's just lock them up. What could possibly go wrong? what do you think the university should be doing? Within one halls you have hundreds testing and illicit raves. What you would do, if you were the university?

@madastrees

Students with mh problems should be able to seek help. However, the vast majority of the students at my university on freshers week were out getting very drunk and doing a lot of dancing in clubs and raves and there was a fair bit of random shagging going on too.

What the actual fuck? You have proof of this? You sound very definite.

Uni mental health services in my experience (as a student with diagnosed mental health problems) are dire and only have "have you contacted your GP" and "have you tried mindfulness" as responses.

I've been in contact with ours over summer because I'm getting crippling panic attacks - every single time I've had to prod and remind and push them to check out things they've promised to check up on. I'm a fairly superficially (riddled with anxiety but hide it well) confident older lady - not a new to the place 18 year old who would be much more likely to just assume they'd been forgotten about and let it slide.