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.

Most of the issues with students seem to be around flats being allocated with one or two students which is making it hard for students to socialise when they are trying to follow rules and stay in their bubbles but the bubble is too small...or maybe the students are in a household where the bubble may want to party and break rules/visit other flats and the student is keen to keep safe and not have a situation where they have to self isolate because that would prevent them doing parts of their course.

You could have a household of 12 where 11 are considerate and keep safe and 1 extreme partygoer could result in all of them having to isolate and miss part of their course.

Dds accommodation (actual townhouse) was not allocated until the day of arrival so it's impossible to chat beforehand. I'm trusting she's OK (just a daily text, hope it stays the same) , they seem to have shopped together and went out to SU on first night they are off into town today. She's been in this situation before with NCS and foreign exchange where she knew no and adapted really well but I think she's fortunate to have (at the moment) a good group of housemates.

It's overwhelming situation for some and I feel for the DC locked down it will be too much for some who have already had a stressful time with the A level fiasco. Its a worry that most of these kids will be drinking more than normal too. I know one of my Dds friends hasn't ventured out of her room much she's incredibly worried because her dad is undergoing Chemo and she can't see any other way of keeping safe...she would love to go home one weekend. She will weather the storm because she loves her subject.

Oh, don't misunderstand me - I really don't blame university staff for the mess. I blame the government primarily - as I do for the whole school mess up, the exam fiasco and the results debacle, but I do think the highest up the chain in universities could have been more open about what was going to happen so that students could have made better choices. Not to turn up and find their timetable changed the next day.

Yes Aragog - my dd timetable arrived after freshers week when she was already there. That might be normal but in this year didn’t give them much info or time to make an informed decision about staying home or not.

She was expecting lab time which is why she went.

At the end of the day this situation is a bloody nightmare for everyone.

For many students who are feeling a bit or a lot lost and confused. For uni staff who are stressed and worried both about their students and their jobs and life in general. And us parents who are worried about our children.

It’s not what anyone signed up for.

My DS had a gap year but it was mostly at home due to Covid. So it wasn’t keen on deferring. He went looking forward to the experience even though he knew it wouldn’t be the normal uni experience. He’s been a bit up and down but is looking forward to starting his course properly tomorrow with F2F tomorrow and Tuesday.

Generally he gets on with those in his flat but they are close to London and a lot of them are from London and already knew each other or knew people in other flats so are hanging out with them. Quite a few have gone home for the weekend. He’s not overly confident at suggesting stuff as yet. Hopefully that will change as he gets to know people better.

I’ve said to him that if he decides it’s not working and he wants to come home that that is fine with us. He can do this term on line. But he wants to stick it out for a bit. I have to admit I’m a bit worried though.

@MrsEricBana

Re the ban on going home, a friend's ds went up for some sort of pre-season training, came home, got a call to say some of the other players were now ill, he was asymptomatic but tested positive, both his 50 something parents are now ill.

Poor lad, he probably feels very guilty. Hopefully his parents will be absolutely fine but there is always the worry they won't be .

@RiojaRose I think I was the one who made the "soooo fast" comment originally. I'm also dyslexic - can read and write fine on a day to day level but my processing and retaining information from written texts is massively low compared to everything else (I also have a query about dyspraxia but the ed psych wasn't screening for that - but my daughter has the condition).

Thankfully my subject is one that lends itself very well to video clips being set as independent learning tasks and some questions to think about prior to the live online sessions - but those who set heavy chapters from academic texts I find much harder (the uni ebooks don't work well with my screen reader software - I have to screenshot the page and run it through OCR with some interesting results). It's just something I cope with. I think there's an option with our library to turn texts into accessible versions which I think I'm going to need to investigate more this year - text to speech was like a revelation when I understood stuff the first time I read it!

What we're getting which seems to help those with organisation difficulties is a weekly outline for each topic as an announcement on our learning platform (we use... and I regularly swear at... Blackboard) - what recorded learning there is for the week, what tasks there are - when the live sessions are that this all needs to be done for.

I'm a sad bugger and I have all my notes, files, reading and timetables all linked together and filed in Notion along with little toggle list questions to recap each subject as I go along. That's taken a heck of a long time over the summer to set up but seems to be the best way for me to work. Then I tend to bung them all onto Quizlet flash cards which a lot of the course tend to use - other people produce pretty summary sheets and share them around ...and the ones who don't do much work tend to just ride on the coat tails. Last year we had one lecturer who got so engaged in his subject that he rambled all over the place and things were so content heavy I would sit with the required knowledge outlines and pick apart all the notes into bullet points we needed to know and circulate them around the class.

The biggest issue I have with the online stuff is that I use lecture recording software, and I have a Macbook - the Mac version of sonocent doesn't have an option to record from speakers - so I can't easily record lectures alongside my notes like I normally would (especially with DH working on calls and giggling away at his netflix queue in the background). That one is going to be a pain in the arse when it comes to revision but I'll just have to figure out a way around it.

One of our staff has set up an anonymous feedback blog on blackboard with us encouraged to post any feedback on there - that might be an idea?

@AgentCooper

Make no mistake, the majority of staff at my institution are furious. I’m professional services but the feeling is the same among friends who are lecturers, janitors, librarians. Students were told to come despite zero f2f teaching and now they’re locked up and being pilloried all over the media and social media. We want resignations from senior management over this. It is an abject failure in duty of care.

This is my experience as well. We are slightly different as still doing a lot of f2f teaching, but that experience is going to be really shit, frankly. There were a lot of very, very angry academics at a meeting I was at last week who think students and staff have been lied to, and that students should not have been bought back to campus to live in a situation of what is going to be frequent self-isolation. Now that it’s done, my university is determined to keep going for as long as it can (don’t want to have to refund those accommodation fees) and we are being issued with directives about how to deal with students who refuse to come to class when the outbreak we already have inevitably increases. We were told that teaching would move online if there was an outbreak, and well before it got to the stage that many US universities found themselves in, but it’s now clear that they plan to keep going regardless and are planning sanctions for staff and students who refuse to attend f2f teaching in that event.

So, basically, I’m to put pressure on reluctant students to come and sit in a windowless classroom when there’s an outbreak on campus, but I can’t suggest they do a walking trail outdoors in a group of four.

I think my son must be really lucky. He's in a flat with 6 others (usually would have been 12) and they have rallied round and are having a great time. They haven't really been out other than for provisions.

The uni seems to be doing lots of virtual events and he's had a busy Freshers week. Very different but he's enjoying it.

@Aragog

Oh, don't misunderstand me - I really don't blame university staff for the mess. I blame the government primarily - as I do for the whole school mess up, the exam fiasco and the results debacle, but I do think the highest up the chain in universities could have been more open about what was going to happen so that students could have made better choices. Not to turn up and find their timetable changed the next day.

Our freshers week starts this weekend - they won't get their timetables till next week when teaching starts and because timetabling is all done via a phone app - they change the bugger constantly anyway.

Usually right after I've written them all in my diary in pretty coloured pens and my best handwriting - which really winds me up! (My diary will look like shite by mid October)

Timetabling this year has been a nightmare. The timetabling staff have been trying to cope with:

1. A range of modules that were changed mid summer to account for the capacity to teach those modules in a blended learning approach
2. Trying to reconfigure spaces that are appropriate for teaching in a socially distanced way
3. Accounting for the fact that as student numbers shift over the summer, some modules may have to move online entirely where the class size will become too large to comply with social distancing. I think this has probably been quite an issue as more students than expected have taken up their places this year (rather than deferring or withdrawing). Furthermore students who would have gone on a year abroad are now not, and unless they're taking a gap year they will now need to be taught as well.
4. Changes in staff availability as the risk levels fluctuate and local lockdowns affect individuals' ability to teach.

This is why timetables are available later than usual, and possibly why students are finding that more of their classes are online than expected.

And if this information, plus changing government advice has only just become available to some universities (in the absence of a crystal ball), I guess some universities will have been faced with a choice between telling students to stay home and disrupting the students' plans and their own financial forecasts at the last minute, or continuing as planned and trying to find as many ways as possible to ensure students do get some physical interaction. This last paragraph is all conjecture on my part - it's not a dilemma I would have been consulted on at my university. But I can easily see how it could happen.

Sorry to hear this quark she should definately put in for swap or speak to student welfare about it. She has been really unlucky and feel.for her.☹️

@Quarks69 - in normal circumstances your daughter would be out and about, meeting her tribe and move quickly. Such a shame

@Sostenueto - there was nothing in the info saying that my daughter would be on an empty corridor or that the social spaces would be closed. Or that she’d have to sit alone in a restaurant. Let’s not imply that this was clear to everyone before our DCs went.
My daughter’s now home and tells me the police were in their halls a lot and breaking up even small groups as well as those breaking the rules. She says they truly felt like they were in prison and the atmosphere was sometimes horrible.
I think anger is the wrong emotion - hard to blame anyone except the virus - I might change my mind if I still have to pay for accomodation when she’s studying from home.
If it was me I’d probably quite enjoy the peace of the solitary life 😃, but it’s quite unmanageable for lots of young people who are at a time of life when they want/need to make friends and learn about themselves.

I don’t agree with the ‘they’re adults and should know how to cope and get round it’ attitude. Many will but many won’t - and those that can’t cope are just as likely to be the ones who create new technology or cures for cancer and need to be kept in the university fold somehow.
My daughter is up and studying already, so happy to be in a busy house again. I’m not doing her bloody washing though!!!

My husband's uni offered students the option of not returning until January if they didn't want to. Teaching staff have had to ensure modules are suitable for delivery to students physically present and distant. Not either or, both at the same time.

poppingnostopping totally agree

My university had at least said since mid summer that all semester 1 will be online and timetables issued late august.
We started this week and had some "live lectures" and sone pre recorded ones. I like the live ones where we can type questions during the session. I think I am probably the only student leaving my camera on during those (as I am aware how much teachers rely on feedback during their presentations) so I can at least laugh when they make a joke etc.
Online seminars are slow, no debate as such due to the format but that may improve. But as my tutor pointed out, work meetings will also be like this now.
Out of 15 in our seminar, only 3 of us were located in London, rest had stayed at home. And I think those 3 lived in London anyway! So a lot of people chose not to return to second year houses, even if committed (sunk cost, most of my cohort live abroad as it's graduate entry law, what can a landlord do!)
We the students need to set up groups for debate of the individual subjects which I will do, but it's only week 1 so nothing to debate yet!

Yes I can see people are having different experiences so apologise if I sounded bad. ( I'm not very eloquent and txt isn't same as ftf). It was not meant in that way. But I really don't know what answer is except each must do what is best for each. Can understand anger and disappointment. I don't blame anyone or any uni
They have had no support from this Government including schools and in all sectors the Government issued orders with no thought it detail and then leaves it to others to sort out. This is a Government who likes to pass the buck and to pass the blame onto various sectors of society. Firstly it was the carers then it was the pubs then it was the young people and now it's everybody and every institution. It's a complete farce and all we can do is get through it best we can.

Dgd has 2 seminars and a practical next week on campus. They r not even allowed on campus unless they have to be there. They have to book slot for library too.

It’s really hard with hindsight but as we started seriously packing the stuff in preparation for last weekend’s move on, my thinking was that if dd hadn’t gone she’d have retreated under her duvet for the next three years and not gone at all. I think larger flats are possibly easier as more choice of possible friends. It’s an ongoing conversation as to whether they stay or want to go home. Not sure whether I’d have that thought if she was moving in today or during the next week or so. But roping on second years via online chats and her lecturers doing questionnaires so they can sort subject study groups into fives with lecturer to lead seems really positive. Not sure how it will all seem when clocks go back. One thing I’m going to send is a new second hand coat so she can sit out and be warm and not worry about the posh new coat I bought her when everything was on sale back in April

Sosento - it's lovely that your DGD is telling you she is having such a positive start to uni life. She's fortunate to be in a lively city which isn't in local lockdown and to have gelled with the people she reached out to. Try having a bit of empathy for those who - despite their best endeavours - haven't been so lucky.

And I do hope that if your DGD does start to struggle, she is able to confide in her mum and not feel under obligation to play the role of golden girl living her best life at all times because that's what you seem to expect.

My child got their timetable online a couple of weeks ago
it specified what would be F2f, what would be watch online, what would be participate online.
So we knew EXACTLY what to expect.

Freshers events have been made COVID secure and are happening F2F across the campus

Accommodation blocks are low rise and spread out so its 36 students per external door being the maximum who could be forced to stay home at once

BUT
That Uni has been openly preparing since the spring for this
I guess because it has a big Biology team who ignored the government and REALLY heeded the science

As a PP has mentioned it should be possible for staff to leave a lecture, or start it early, without them being there - allowing students (who want to) the chance to chat and swap contact details. I'm doing this. Please do encourage your students to ask their tutors for things like this if they'd find it useful. Some lecturers just might not have thought of it, and I can't tell you how great it is when students suggest easy fixes like this that can help the whole group. It's a two way thing!

My organisation is now refunding the first month’s halls fees. I don’t even think being locked down in the halls is the worst of it, though. It’s telling students they needed to be on campus when they didn’t. And fucking Jason Leitch (chief medical officer in Scotland) adopting this punitive tone over house parties and posting passive aggressive tweets saying no, you can’t see your parents etc. And then Nicola Sturgeon is being all touchy feely at her briefings a few days later saying we know it’s not your fault etc. Clearly because she saw the way the entire country started baying for the blood of our students, pretty much egged on by her CMO. I think this has done a lot of reputational damage.

@ListeningQuietly

My child got their timetable online a couple of weeks ago it specified what would be F2f, what would be watch online, what would be participate online. So we knew EXACTLY what to expect.

Freshers events have been made COVID secure and are happening F2F across the campus

Accommodation blocks are low rise and spread out so its 36 students per external door being the maximum who could be forced to stay home at once

BUT
That Uni has been openly preparing since the spring for this
I guess because it has a big Biology team who ignored the government and REALLY heeded the science

Trust me, all universities have been planning since Spring for this. Some may have just managed better than others.

AgentCooper
Following the A level grades debacle, a friend was rejected by St Andrews and then royally messed about.
After the backtrack, they then re offered the place but would not guarantee accommodation.
That person is now happily ensconced in an English Uni
and is delighted that they did not go north of the border.

The way that Scotland has handled the Universities will result in lots of English and Welsh kids disregarding them in future

which will bugger up Sturgeon's numbers long term.