Covid, Cambridge and mental health

[nearlyoldenough]

Am really concerned for dd going back this term
College just announced a raft of rules which are just basically leading to social isolation.
Everything online including social events
Bubbles of ten based on corridors ( bearing in mind rooms were chosen last year and not chosen to be near friends , just for amenities) anyone testing positive whole bubble isolates 14 days but they will leave food outside of room
No overnight guests
Family now not your household so social distancing applies
No lingering in food hall or sitting in groups
Only use library if you must plus prebook
If second lock down they have to stay there
But you have to stay 60 nights to keep term , so basically 60 nights sitting looking at the walls .
Might be ok if v sociable with group of friends that like to go out . Dd is very shy and struggles with social anxiety but had a nice small group of friends that would meet up every night for dinner in hall and go to college social events . None of them are social enough to go out to pubs or clubbing etc and I think this group will be hardest hit .
She is now dreading going back , in those circumstances would much rather stay at home with family and boyfriend ( who she won't be able to see once she goes back now)
Seems unkind really
Appreciate they want the money for halls but if they are going to impose these rules then they ought to give students the choice of where they live really
Anyone else concerned !?

Not sure what ‘keeping out of their way’ constitutes. It is a bit soft as a guideline .

Well yes indeed sendsummer. Thus allowing adults with health conditions to deploy what common sense they have rather than being instructed by a particularly hopeless government.

I also think that the young have paid a very high price to keep others safe . Of course it’s not just the elderly who are vulnerable and the young people are as well. In my experience here young people are not going out and madly socialising, mine have barely been out except to work, volunteer or deliver stuff to grandparents . They are now just beginning to have more of a ‘normal’ social life but it’s far from what it would have been.

Have I understood this correctly: the teaching is all online but the students have to take up accommodation in college? How is the college justifying this?

Lectures online, supervision and small group F2F

Unis seem to be stricter on covid rules than schools at the moment. The cynic in me sees this as ‘get the money up front and we call all the shots’.

How many secondary schools have as many as tens of thousands of students sharing the same teaching spaces, social spaces, sports facilities etc? Universities are not comparable to schools.

For PP: I am continually struck by the naivety of my university colleagues - there are so many examples of setting up absurd rules that won't possibly be followed by students. Lots of lovely abstract discussion about cleaning teaching rooms between each usage, and staggering start times so students don't meet each other going to classes. Completely misses the point that students want to meet each other & are clearly going to do so, one way or another.

@hobbema

Lectures online, supervision and small group F2F

Thanks. The OP said “everything online”, which I assumed meant teaching too.

Schools and unis are comparable in that the OP is talking about a college so quite small.

I’m not suggesting a crazy free for all freshers week but I can’t see how unis can justify not having more ‘live’ teaching. Groups under 12-15 surely ok if schools can do it. My dd only has 3 tutorials a week - hardly a mass gathering compared to school yet they still aren’t doing them.

The UCU have been difficult about a return to face to face teaching. Many of the rules are in place to appease the unions.

@hobbema

Lectures online, supervision and small group F2F

And labs for relevant subjects... not sure how exactly they're going to organise them but they're not all just doing simulations for sure.

DD is about to start her 4th year - not knowing exactly what the arrangements would be, she and 4 friends (her female bestie from her college, her BF and her two best mates from her course) have arranged a house share - they signed the tenancy yesterday. The college were pleased she doesn't need her room as of course they overoffered and need to accommodate the first years. Not sure whether this is still accurate but she reckoned there were still quite a lot of 4-bed rentals available so maybe that's still an option for some of the older students if they don't like the college rules.

She's in Cambridge in an airb&b with her BF at the moment, they've been having picnics with other friends in the many green spaces. Intelligent young people can find ways to socialise safely.

Oh the roses - that makes sense. This really doesn’t seem to be about students as they seem to have more rules than living at home.

Re the comparison between schools and unis - there is of course much more geographical mixing at the latter. In normal years, 'freshers flu' is ubiquitous, and recently outbreaks of mumps were not uncommon.

Seriously they can step 2 yards outside their college gate and join the rest of Cambridge carrying on life pretty much in the new normal way, eating out, coffee shops open, Jesus Green, Midsummer Common and Parker's Piece busy with young people hanging out together

Errol yes which is why freshers isn’t happening

Meeting in groups of 3-15 for lessons isn’t comparable

Unis are blocking this because they can

I don’t think you can “blame” UCU for this (and, believe me, I am far from being a fan of their). UK universities will be looking at what is happening in the US and panicking. There are multiple campuses over there which have recorded hundreds of Covid cases each. Overall there have also been dozens of deaths.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-college-cases-tracker.html

The college managements are blaming the outbreaks on students having large gatherings. As others have said on this thread, it’s inevitable that students will socialise, but the university’s aim is to get through as much of the academic year as possible without having to move all teaching online, as happened within days of the semester starting in many US universities.

If you think that universities care about their staff getting ill, I can promise you they don’t. Mine isn’t even doing risk assessments for staff who are vulnerable or have been shielding. The aim is to not have to close the campus and lose income streams.

Virtual freshers... DD said they've got a diagram of where the stalls should have been for people to click and then access online stuff, zoom or whatever.

Societies will mostly continue somehow ... if there's a reduction in the drinking clubs and bedpost-notching sorts of activities that's possibly not exactly a tragedy.

Dd has mainly freshers in her corridor bubble and is going to make an effort to befriend them as she realised how hard it will be for them.

Good for her! Make sure she's got things like a picnic rug, lots of biscuits... they will see her as the experienced older student and many of them will be more anxious than she is. Inter year mixing is one of the positives of colleges.

I am sorry to hear that GCAcademic because we do care about the staff, are doing risk assessments and totally supporting flexible working. And the UCU still say management don't care.

I shouldn’t have generalised, and in fact my husband’s university’s Occupational Health called him yesterday as part of his risk assessment, so some employers are doing them. I’m feeling pretty sore right now as it’s clear my university has a completely different set of concerns to his.

Seriously they can step 2 yards outside their college gate and join the rest of Cambridge carrying on life pretty much in the new normal way

Exactly so. Indeed where I live (well known tourist area/ beach) life isn't even new normal among young people, it's normal. I would very much expect life to be normal when the same young people go up to uni, certainly two yards outside of college, even if it's slightly abnormal within. So what's the point really?

Stranger, the news coming from the States, Universities like Notre Dame, has been frightening. Other US Universities have taken note and are trying to be more cautious, and UK Universities then have a chance to learn from them.

Indoors seems more of a problem than out on the street, even a West Country street. Lecture halls with 300 or more could be complete virus incubators. The aim will be to get students back but to minimise risk. The last thing anyone wants is for Universities to have to shut down two weeks into term. The better US examples seem to be the ones where they provide strict guidelines and then use older students to explain why these guidelines are being imposed.

DD (Imperial - intercalation degree) is online till January. She started about three weeks ago but it does not look as if there are any plans to facilitate even the London based students to meet each other. Indeed she seems to think her campus is closed. She would be quite happy to restrict herself to a bubble. Better than parents...

I think we agree large lectures are a no.

I can’t see the reason not to teach some smaller classes. Especially as in halls they are eating together etc

I assume the reason Imperial don’t want students, at least on DDs course, back till January is to help overseas students. I assume even on STEM courses Cambridge will have nothing like the same number of internationals as London. A friend’s son really struggled getting home at Easter with several cancelled flights and quarantine on return. Until they can be confident there won’t be another lockdown I assume they would prefer their students were safe, and ideally not isolated in rented flats on their own.

DD received a big box of stuff from her University, so lab time is in her bedroom. The course is really interesting so she seems happy enough.

It may make sense to let the initial student mixing occur while more of the teaching is online, and then maybe they'll gradually be able to introduce the small groups. It's surely safer to start off with stricter rules which can be relaxed rather than start lax and find there are problems.

@ErrolTheDragon ah your last sentence made me smile. As a teacher that's what we have been suggesting for months. Unis are doing this right. Schools are not.