University experience is awful at the moment

[Cupcakke]

DD moved into university on Saturday. The rules are very stringent, both campus bars are closed, the university library has very little capacity and the restaurant is take away only. There are virtually no freshers events in person.

Her flat mates are very shy and not very social and she is in a small flat.

Large gatherings keep occurring but the penalty for this is very severe so DD very cautious not to attend these.

She is essentially watching Netflix in her room. I fear for the loneliness. The online events she has attended are poorly attended and just very boring.

Teaching starts next week and her In person contact hours are just 4 hours a week.

Anyone else’s dc thinking this years university experience is non existent.

We're in a local lockdown area and my colleagues have all been fine with suggesting socially distanced walks for our tutor groups - if it's legal why would it be a problem?

@GCAcademic - sounds (you this is) sensible and pragmatic. I presume you'd be casually mentioning the walking trail and its links to the subject they are reading for their degree, and perhaps by chance a couple of nice coffee shops with outdoor seating that just happen to be on the route.

Unfortunately, Quarks, this came from the head of my school. The lack of logic is breathtaking. We’re not allowed to suggest to students that they meet outside in a group of four, but meeting inside in much larger groups for f2f teaching is fine and continuing even though we are well into an an outbreak before term has even started.

boys3 - I couldn’t possibly comment

Those legal fears do sound wrong. But some lawyers are over cautious in their advice.
My DD is in a choir at her university. They're doing a choir week and are spending several hours a day singing together, socially distanced. They are eating together, too, socially distanced.

Gosh I’m astonished that a university choir is still allowed to run, given what we know about choirs and superspreading events. Really surprised by that.

Apparently research shows that singing doesn't spread more than speaking.

Time will tell.

@Quarks69 : hope your DD settles in soon. If you are nowhere near and she wants to see a real person, pm me as I am close to the uni most days and spend an hour in one of the uni car parks on Saturdays (waiting for DCto finish classes, not just hanging round in a car park for the sake of it!)

Thank you 'boys3'. I will suggest to him tomorrow re course reps etc.

Well written @tickledtrout.

My Dgd is not a social media lover but I insisted that she join accomodation chat and subject chat before she went to uni to learn as much info as possible. Using both those platforms she met 3 flatmates and several on her course. That came in really useful at start of uni. I recommend people doing that as it really helps when they cannot socialise like normal. I said to my Dgd when she went that life and social life does not come to you but you have to go to it. And she's took that on board. It had been a big ask and she has had to be brave but that is the way to do it. Nevertheless I understand that all people are different and understand where people are coming from but they are all adults now and must learn to be adaptable in such circumstances as now. Some can cope and some cannot so all must do what suits their young adults.

I agree that the course chats have been very helpful.

It's only a week since Dgd started. But in that week her flatmates and herself curious to be in London and wanting to explore have together travelled on buses been in two parks gone on tubes visited museums and tourist spots, had a pizza night an Oriental night ( Dgd did sushi another flat ate cooked curry, another stirfry and the two boys did a pudding. They had a meal out and during the day they do their thing like studying shopping etc and in evening they gather in kitchen for meal socialisation then adjourn into garden courtyard area and games room to then socialise with other bubbles even if socially distanced. Do perhaps if some who are having trouble chatting with flatmates maybe put note up in kitchen with suggestions for evening get together to play games chat cook get takeaway blah blah. As I said to Dgd if u don't ask you will never know! Think effort us involved in starting it all off but worth it in end. They might all be sitting there alone waiting for someone to start it off! If u don't speak to anyone u can't get to know them can you?

Lovely ideas @Sostenueto. Glad it's working for your dgd. In a few places flats aren't allowed to mix at all and in some catered halls young people are sat apart from each other to eat. Some students have started on courses and in cities that weren't their first choice.
It certainly helps to try and make friends if and where you can

@Poppingnostopping

Not quite sure if I should raise it with staff yet but the recorded content... sooooo fucking fast! I know it's bloody hard to judge the pitch of your delivery without an audience to feed back to and gauge how they're doing - but flipping heck I'm wearing the pause and rewind buttons out!

This is actually very helpful feedback for me! I have noticed than when recording alone I am much faster than when I'm in a lecture hall- I guess the lack of student nodding, feedback, also it's quite hard to talk for a prolonged period and not feel self-conscious on camera. I am going to try really really hard to slow up a bit...

Me too. I have my recorded lectures set up so that the transcript appears next to the slides (with my face in a tiny box in one corner) so I hope it’s possible to pause the playback where necessary and see what I’m saying in the transcript. But it feels fast even to me. I think I say about 25% more than if I had students in front of me. And I’m really keen to hear whether it works ok for people with dyslexia, ASD, ADHD etc. I’m planning to ask them on Monday.

I have to say: I’m really impressed with this year’s students. It’s only been a week for my first year class, but they’re engaging really well with the material and having excellent discussions in their breakout rooms. I’m really aware that I can’t see all of them all the time, but from what I have seen they’re amazing. I feel incredibly lucky to be able to work with them.

Thanks tickledtrout it is so hard for them I know but sometimes I get the feeling people expect everything should just be there for them. Socialisation needs effort. It really doesn't just happen. Surprised bubbles cannot mix. Obviously they have to keep a metre between each bubble and no one from other flats allowed into your flat but outside area they can socialise with other bubbles provided they keep distance . Poolroom only allows 4 players in ( 2 tables) no spectators and u do have to book slot. There are some as there always us that break rules but they do so at own peril as whole flat will get fined if one breaks rules and if you hold a party in yr flat or have anyone else other than yr flatmates in then could very well get evicted from accomodation! And that extends to all flatmates! So dgds flatmates definately doesn't want that to happen!

Set up walk and talk groups for my personal tutees who were first years. I emphasised that there was no obligation, but that they could meet up in groups of 6 and maybe have a coffee afterwards. I’m a bit worried now, if lawyers say we shouldn’t’t, but actually I mentioned it to our Dean and he was happy about it.

And I’m not sorry I did it. If it means there’s a student who’s made a friend and isn’t crying their eyes out alone in their room, then good. I did see lots of groups of students from halls walking around today, so some are getting out and about.

They're adults, and they have as much info on Covid as you have. And it's optional. I don't see the legal risk.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54313054
I'm glad to hear that Labour are speaking out about this. I'm furious on the students' behalf, that they were effectively conned that university life would be "almost normal". There's no doubt that Saint Boris's doom and gloom announcement was timed so that it would be too late for many students to defer, without losing significant amounts of money. If they had known they would be imprisoned like this, many would have deferred; like the rest of us, they're pawns in Boris's game.

I can imagine some universities are loving being an outpost of the nanny state here. I remember the way my university handled "Battels" - they cheerfully told us at the start of term "Vandalism does happen, and you will be charged for it". Result? Vandalism. Lots of it. All listed on noticeboards as well, with students' names if it happened in any rooms. Nocturnal fire alarms happened a lot, and the warden took great delight in telling us that we didn't evacuate quickly enough, so we would have to have more fire alarms at night. He was loving it.

Yes, wanderings, you get that all over. I think it was the same in world war II - certainly kinds of people delight in it all and the rules and catching people out.

In a sense this year's freshers are doing good for next year's students as had we cancelled university for freshers the universities might have suffered massive financial losses next year's students could have been affected too.

I am glad some choirs can continue ( I did loads of singing at university) as singing makes you happy and is good for you and can be done socially distanced.

On lectures my sons (they are not freshers) have workshops but one listened to a 10 minute introductory one which was by one of those men who just read out their notes. Sometimes you get a speaker like that., I have given public talks for 20 years and always try to avoid just reading things out if you can. Bristols where my twins were for 3 years has always recorded almost every lecture for the last 3 years as far as I know in their subjects and the lecturer switched on record in the physical lecture when they started and that was very popular with one of my sons who learns a lot by listening later, reeling back, listening again etc. They had one lecturer who refused to press record and complaints were made and she was asked to do so in the end. However that may be a different skill - giving your normal lecture but pressing record than what lecturers are now doing with not much live at all.

No, we are not “loving“ it wanderings. I have never been so stressed at work in my entire life. My managers are having to sign off risk assessments while being told that they could end up in prison if someone contracts Covid and dies as a result of anything they’ve failed to address. Hardly anyone has taken annual leave this year and we are all exhausted from working frantically all summer. We’re not exactly deriving fun out of any of this.

No one was conned about what university was going to be like!
My Dgd was fully informed of measures her university was taking and the fact that mostly everything would be on line, and, she was offered the opportunity to do whole of first year on line at home if she wanted to!
She had been informed all of this the day after results day.
Everyone knew Covid measures would be in place. Every person going to uni knew Covid measures would be in place. Apart from anything else it was common sense that there would be such measures.
I don't get where people think they were conned?
We had told Dgd that her uni experience would not be what was usual. She knew there would not be traditional fresher's week. We warned her she could be isolated if a breakout of Covid caused mainly by those who break the guidelines. She was well aware what it could be like if that happened. She was given all the relevant information by both the uni and ourselves and she had a choice what to do. She chose to go and as she said she would make the best of it. She did this fully aware of all scenarios.

And there is no 'normal' anywhere! My life hasn't been ' normal' since February. Only the ones that haven't followed the guidelines have had a ' normal' life. There is no ' normal' and won't be for a long time. Universities are trying their best. Our DC are no longer children but young adults. Adults who should take responsibility for their own lives and their own safety. young adults who should know about Covid and measures that will be taken to control it in unis and anywhere else an out real occurs. They should know the risks that their behaviour might cause. They should learn that as adults you may not be able to do what you want to do if it means safeguarding both themselves and others. In other words welcome to the adult world.