Students returning to university ?

[RockingMyFiftiesNot]

Not sure how I feel about this one.
Various friend's children are returning to university next week. From their perspective I can see why they would want to return and why their parents would be happy for that.
I'm concerned about the potential impact on the spread of the virus. We live in a city with one if the highest student populations in the country and our numbers went through the roof when students returned after the summer. Regular stores of police breaking up parties (stating fact, not judging..... pretty sure I'd have been partying too at that age) and whole halls being quarantined.
I know students were tested before coming home at Christmas but even if they are tested before returning, it's not to say that they aren't still incubating at the point they are tested.
Happy to debate - just made me feel a bit nervous about a repeat of the post-summer rise in numbers

Sorry posted in wrong thread. Will ask for post to get removed

That was a knee jerk response to posters having no empathy whatsoever with my concerns that their children disregarding universities asking them not to return and to stay at home. Because their children would prefer to be with their friends.

It isn’t that people don’t have empathy with your concerns. It’s that people disagree with you. Lots of us have explained why our young people have returned to university, but your comment was directed at all of them. You apologised for saying it but it’s clear you still believe it because you continue to talk about students wanting to be with their friends as being the reason they have returned.

@FamilyOfAliens

That was a knee jerk response to posters having no empathy whatsoever with my concerns that their children disregarding universities asking them not to return and to stay at home. Because their children would prefer to be with their friends.

It isn’t that people don’t have empathy with your concerns. It’s that people disagree with you. Lots of us have explained why our young people have returned to university, but your comment was directed at all of them. You apologised for saying it but it’s clear you still believe it because you continue to talk about students wanting to be with their friends as being the reason they have returned.

I have written in many of my comments that I appreciate there are valid reasons why students need to be back. My comments were aimed at those who chose to go back against the universities advice.

Well my DD is going back to uni in the next couple of weeks. She's been stuck here since before Christmas and, unlike you OP, we weren't allowed to see anyone at Christmas. She's sensible, her flat mates are sensible and they are entitled () to some sense of normality.

Is it wrong to secretly hope she's going back to OP's uni town?

I have written in many of my comments that I appreciate there are valid reasons why students need to be back. My comments were aimed at those who chose to go back against the universities advice.

You made no such distinction when you described students as “such an entitled generation”.

[quote singsingbluesilver]@boys3 - not in England. You seem to have wasted a lot of time trying to prove me wrong.[/quote]
Hardly. Opening two files, running two queries, probably less than a minute.

However as I don’t need to worry about you being in England now I can say that the 2 MSOAs with a more than threefold increase in case rates since start January are:

Lancaster East

Durham City

I'd doubt Lancaster East has much to do with the Uni. According to their official figures as per the Uni website, only 4 students living off campus have tested positive in January.

The whole Lancaster/Morecambe area has suffered very high numbers this month, particularly Morecambe Bare/Torrisholme, where approximately zero students will be living.

The Lancaster/Morecambe infections are 99% certain to be nothing to do with the Uni.

It's sentiments like the OP's that have just led to a very skilled member of my course dropping out this week (future healthcare professional as well)... they just couldn't take the combination of returning to an almost empty hall of residence, to a campus which is frankly deeply unpleasant to be on (if the library could get away with putting FUCK OFF signs up they would do - they've done everything BUT) and to a local community who are blaming the students' existence for anything and everything.

As for why go back? We have to be back in the area for placements, we need access to various labs and software that, however much the university claim to have set up so we can connect to it remotely - does NOT fucking work that way, we have to be back to use clinical experience areas and I also have assignments due where we need to suggest various assessments and therapies which the manuals to look at and refer to are locked up in the main campus building.

I don't want to be on the bloody campus - it's a horrendous place to be these days - and the library seem to think of new rules to make it even crapper every week at the moment - so I admire those who can stick it out and put up with it because I sure as hell couldn't live in those circumstances.

I am a uni lecturer. We have been remote teaching since the autumn, with no plans for that to change this year. Uni students, with rare exceptions like those doing clinical training and certain hard sciences, do not need to be on campus. One of my students is in NZ! Several others in the US and Asia. There is no reason in many cases for them to be there and remote learning is an option for many, though I expect living at home is not massively attractive either. But I think the same would be the case with young people who are not in uni and working. They probably want to be out living their own lives.

@Kazzyhoward, yes that is what I concluded in my initial post about the Lancaster MSOA.

But I think the same would be the case with young people who are not in uni and working. They probably want to be out living their own lives.

And they can if they want move into a rented flat or whatever. So what difference does it make that similar young people are learning instead of earning?

So many sweeping generalisations and assumptions.

To be honest, most students who are going back have done so.
Both mine went early January to the houses they rent.
It’s where their stuff is. It’s also close to the university library. I’m at a loss to understand how students are meant to propose dissertations etc without access to an academic library.
It’s where their GPS are.

My daughter came home at the beginning of December, and is still here. She is in the 3rd year and in private rented accommodation, so for the second year running we are paying for accommodation that she is not using for a considerable period.

She doesn't intend to go back until households are allowed to mix indoors again, or after Easter (whichever is the sooner). All her lectures etc are on-line, as they have been since beginning of the academic year, and she doesn't need the library because she has on-line access to everything she needs.

She doesn't have a local GP now, but I don't imagine her GP is seeing patients face to face anyway, so if she needs something she will try and get a video or phone consultation.

Her housemates returned after Christmas and have been mixing with one other household (it's a friendship group of 9 altogether). None of them have had Covid (as far as they know).

I gather that there is some tension between those who have returned, because some want to restrict the contact to the current two households (which is breaking the rules anyway) and others who want to mix more widely. My daughter is happy to stay out of it, though she is obviously missing her friends and her boyfriend.

It's not an easy situation for any of them, and I only hope that her final term can be more normal.

I'm a lecturer. My own DC aren't anywhere near student age yet. Students at my university are told that if they return to the city, they must isolate until they have had 2 negative lateral flow tests 3 days apart. Only students on specific courses (e.g. healthcare) are allowed on campus.

And I'll say again, I feel desperately sorry for them. But students make up a small percentage of the population. So the rest of us should stay home so they can enjoy the student experience?

I don't think that it's about the 'student experience'. Nearly all of the normal student experience hasn't existed this year. Lecturers have been receiving panicked emails from students who are struggling to revise or complete coursework without their books.

If you had travelled to your parents' house, with just the hand luggage you took on the train (leaving food in your cupboards, unemptied bins, etc), and the government announced that you now need to wfh from your shared childhood bedroom for the foreseeable future, would you really just accept that?

@mindutopia

I am a uni lecturer. We have been remote teaching since the autumn, with no plans for that to change this year. Uni students, with rare exceptions like those doing clinical training and certain hard sciences, do not need to be on campus. One of my students is in NZ! Several others in the US and Asia. There is no reason in many cases for them to be there and remote learning is an option for many, though I expect living at home is not massively attractive either. But I think the same would be the case with young people who are not in uni and working. They probably want to be out living their own lives.

Be careful what you wish for. If students realise they don't need to be on campus, there are far cheaper ways of them getting their degrees or professional qualifications for many of them. Your Uni will also lose out on the accommodation charges too. If "remote" learning is too successful it could well spell the end of many Unis. More than ever, I think Unis are going to really have to up their game to recover as the "genie is out of the bottle" if online/remote learning is successful!

So the rest of us should stay home so they can enjoy the student experience?

It's not a matter of "enjoying" the student experience. As many have sad, some can't study at home, some need access to the library, some need access to specialist computers, some have left their books/notes etc in their Uni flats which they need. Enjoyment really doesn't come into it - it's more a matter of necessity.

Be careful what you wish for. If students realise they don't need to be on campus, there are far cheaper ways of them getting their degrees or professional qualifications for many of them. Your Uni will also lose out on the accommodation charges too. If "remote" learning is too successful it could well spell the end of many Unis. More than ever, I think Unis are going to really have to up their game to recover as the "genie is out of the bottle" if online/remote learning is successful!

Agree with this, especially as regards the thousands of overseas - most of them Chinese - students coming to the UK. Many unis are highly dependent on them, but if they're being told that online learning is 'just as good' then they could save themselves thousands of £ by opting for a cheaper online course and not have to bother with accommodation, visas, flights etc.

No doubt the same unis now telling students that online learning is a viable alternative will be heavily selling the 'university experience' next year or whenever it becomes possible to do so. But will there be buyers?

@IcedPurple

Be careful what you wish for. If students realise they don't need to be on campus, there are far cheaper ways of them getting their degrees or professional qualifications for many of them. Your Uni will also lose out on the accommodation charges too. If "remote" learning is too successful it could well spell the end of many Unis. More than ever, I think Unis are going to really have to up their game to recover as the "genie is out of the bottle" if online/remote learning is successful!

Agree with this, especially as regards the thousands of overseas - most of them Chinese - students coming to the UK. Many unis are highly dependent on them, but if they're being told that online learning is 'just as good' then they could save themselves thousands of £ by opting for a cheaper online course and not have to bother with accommodation, visas, flights etc.

No doubt the same unis now telling students that online learning is a viable alternative will be heavily selling the 'university experience' next year or whenever it becomes possible to do so. But will there be buyers?

For the Unis who've reacted badly to covid, i.e. refusing to refund accommodation costs, imposing unjustified restrictions on students, charging £18 for a daily food parcel for isolating students, this is even more likely to have a negative impact on future student numbers. They need to remember their actions are very easily publicised via social media (and national press) and could easily put off future students, especially, as you say, foreign students who pay even more than the £15k the UK students are fleeced for.

I lecture online. Its plugging the gap but it's not a.gppd way to learn, class.debates are hard to facilitate for example. Of.the 180 students on my UG module.this term, I've seen the face of one of them before she quickly turned her camera off like the others (we are not allowed to enforce cameras on at our institution). They definitely get a lot less out of sessions although are being spoon fed more to make up for it.

Laughing at the idea of students getting a university experience.
There are no societies, sports, drama or music. All bars are closed.
They’re working, watching Netflix and going for walks. Like the fucking rest of us.

My dd returned to use the specialised software in the design centre.
She's final year and her dissertation is based on making a model and testing it in the wind tunnel. At the moments he's not even sure that will happen. The whole situation is fucking ridiculous.

@IcedPurple

Be careful what you wish for. If students realise they don't need to be on campus, there are far cheaper ways of them getting their degrees or professional qualifications for many of them. Your Uni will also lose out on the accommodation charges too. If "remote" learning is too successful it could well spell the end of many Unis. More than ever, I think Unis are going to really have to up their game to recover as the "genie is out of the bottle" if online/remote learning is successful!

Agree with this, especially as regards the thousands of overseas - most of them Chinese - students coming to the UK. Many unis are highly dependent on them, but if they're being told that online learning is 'just as good' then they could save themselves thousands of £ by opting for a cheaper online course and not have to bother with accommodation, visas, flights etc.

No doubt the same unis now telling students that online learning is a viable alternative will be heavily selling the 'university experience' next year or whenever it becomes possible to do so. But will there be buyers?

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. The Open Uni has always been there - well in my lifetime at least

Part of the attraction for many students has been the independence of leaving home, meeting new people etc, although recognising that in normal times some 20% live at home and “go local” so to speak.

DS2 has been fortunate in so far as he appreciates that his uni has, in what is a totally shit situation for everyone, genuinely tried to do their best. There are some horror stories out there about certain unis but memories are often short, and I wonder whether the broader reputation will win out?

The lucrative overseas student is a whole other question.

@Lifeinaonesie

I lecture online. Its plugging the gap but it's not a.gppd way to learn, class.debates are hard to facilitate for example. Of.the 180 students on my UG module.this term, I've seen the face of one of them before she quickly turned her camera off like the others (we are not allowed to enforce cameras on at our institution). They definitely get a lot less out of sessions although are being spoon fed more to make up for it.

Totally agree. I had a temporary job at a uni this summer teaching online. It was nowhere near as good as the real thing. We and the students did our best but it is not an adequate substitute long-term. I also found that almost all my students left their cameras off even though I encouraged them to turn them on. Talking at black circles on a screen was a soul-destroying experience. And at least I got paid for it. Imagine paying for that 'experience'!