Tips for coping with uni online

[IndigoApple]

DD is in 3rd year of a 4 year science degree. In a flat with nice flatmates, has a part time job, and not had to self isolate or anything, but she is really struggling with uni being online.

She should be spending a lot of time in labs this year but will only have 2 lab sessions between now and Christmas. The rest is online - either watching someone doing something on video or doing some sort of web-based simulation from what I can gather. Lectures all online and she doesn't seem to have tutorials or 1:1s or anything. DD is an extrovert and loves being around people and enjoys lab work best.

I have tried to come up with a few suggestions e.g. setting up regular Zoom/Facetime catch ups with people on her course, making more use of the class group chat, trying to book slots in the library (she says it's really difficult) and trying to set a routine even just stuff like getting a Starbucks on a Monday morning or a M&S sandwich on a Friday etc.

Anyone got any suggestions? She sounded so defeated when we spoke yesterday.

Not all universities make money from halls of residence. We don’t own ours they are private and dealt with by the landlords as they would be with any private contract. The lecturers also don’t have any say over extracurricular activities. All of our sports have been stopped due to the governments rules rather than the universities

@Badbadbunny

I think the problem is that students aren't getting what their Unis promised them to get them onto campuses (i.e. to get the room rentals!). If Unis had been honest and basically said it's nearly all going to be online, with virtually no activites on campus, then many students wouldn't have gone. Now they're there and tied in to 40 week letting agreements, they do feel conned. Yes, I understand about finances, but it's not really fair to have coerced current year students onto campusus just to get their money for their rooms.

My DD (first year) is loving her student accommodation. She would be completely miserable if attending lectures from home. I think she would struggle with motivation, tbh. But being in a flat with 9 other students, they support one another.

She also does some societies online.

One thing my department has done is pull all research leave so we have more members of staff to compensate. But of course that is going to cause trouble later on when we need to produce those publications for the REF. And it also means the department losing money from research grants

Yes, yes, and yes.

My university has changed our contracts, so that research leave is on hold for the forseeable ...

even in parks or marquees even if the lecturers have big microphones and are a big distance from the students

I can just see my students rolling up to a park in the rain at 9am. THey'd be pleading to go online so they can be warm at home. In fact I think at our last seminar just before christmas, we'll do a pyjama party!

@MissMarplesGlove

even in parks or marquees even if the lecturers have big microphones and are a big distance from the students

I can just see my students rolling up to a park in the rain at 9am. THey'd be pleading to go online so they can be warm at home. In fact I think at our last seminar just before christmas, we'll do a pyjama party!

Would be about par for the course here anyway - we have lecturers who've confessed they've got pyjamas on bottom half and stuck dresses on over PJs to record lectures for us! We have a very interesting group dynamic on our course - lots of fussing over dogs goes on and things - I've promised at some point I'll get my dog off the sofa and into her pink onesie on camera for a laugh.

Then we have the guy who dons a 3 piece suit to sit in his kitchen on webcam - bless him!

If it's any consolation it is super depressing for lecturers too. I am still doing a mixture of online and some face to face teaching and the latter is really keeping me going week to week, I am dreading the moment when it (probably inevitably) gets shut down. Personally I think where students have been actively encouraged to return to campus / halls, then they should be being offered at least one face-to-face session a week. If that's not possible, they should be sent home.

" Now suddenly we're asked to believe that students desperately want to be in a teaching room, even wearing masks, even being unable to have group discussions, even having to sanitise everything, and that nothing else is good enough and if they don't get it they're not getting their money's worth!"

For my DD, she's just really keen to meet people on her course.

She hasn't had a single face to face session, and none timetabled.

She is in catered accommodation, so no kitchens or households or areas to socialise. She collected her meals and had to take them back to her room to eat alone.

She joined three clubs, and paid to join, but they are no longer meeting.

It is very difficult to get to know people in that situation and now she's home, studying online - still working her part time job so that she can pay for her room, and the three meals per day that she's not eating.

It's not good enough. No other business gets to say 'we're trying our best so please just keep paying even though you're not getting what you were promised.'

She's paying £2500 for accommodation and £3000 tuition fees for this period up to Christmas. That's a lot of money. How many people would cheerfully pay out £5500 for something, only to be told that they won't be getting it but still have to pay? Let's say you paid for a 5 star hotel but ended up in a 2 star fleapit instead, I expect 'we're trying our best' wouldn't cut it really. You either deliver or, if your best isn't good enough, you reimburse the paying customer.

Very little of what you have said above is the responsibility of her course though. The tuition fees are for the education and the qualification not the social experience of being at university. Teaching is still happening, assessment will still be happening. It’s not being delivered online because that’s more convenient for staff- it’s because that is how it has to be for everyone’s safety and because that’s what the government restrictions are imposing.

I understand why it's online and she doesn't mind studying online really.

I also understand that the social experience isn't the university's experience.

But if you're providing four hours online per week instead of the ten hours that previous cohorts had, and if you promised 50% face to face teaching that you are no longer providing, and if you insisted that accommodation was necessary in order to attend the face to face sessions that never materialised, and if a % of the rent is for food that's not being prepared, purchased or consumed then a partial refund is due imo.

• the university's responsibility

Changes in the amount of face to face teaching (at least where I am) have largely happened due to a resurgence of COVID and changing government guidelines (rather then it was the plan all along and we just didn’t mention it). I do think students should be reimbursed from the university owned halls accomadation contracts if they wish to leave though. As I mentioned earlier in the thread all our halls are private so whilst we don’t gain money from them we also don’t have any control over contracts. Have her course explained why the total number of hours has gone down? Ours have gone vastly up as we try to make up for the lack of face to face by ramping up the online support.

" Have her course explained why the total number of hours has gone down?"

They are just always being cancelled at the last minute. She hasn't had more than four hours pw yet.

My sons are not unhappy and are doing post grad law which is a means to a professional end and their recent first on-line exams (mocks) apparently worked well (although they were hard but that is a different normal problem in good and bad times to cope with). However they have met no one on the courses they are doing and obviously no lecturers (other than in on-line sessions). I think the institution should consider pricing as one is doing the course in London for £2k more than the one doing it in Bristol and the course is the same and the qualification the same. On the other side of that I am paying over £6k rent a year for the one who is not living at home.

So there are about 4 issues for many students:-

1. Some feel they were prom and fees because we will be like an upper sixth in school - face to face. That has then not ended up happening.

1. Number of contact hours on line in some cases is fewer. I have no statistics on that.

1. Particularly for freshers - very little meeting anyone so you are paying in some cases £7k rent and £9250 fees to sit in a room a third of the size of your middle class bedroom at home and in some cases security guards keeping you inside whereas were you at home you might have an acre of garden to yourself even if you were required to isolate. If lecturers think a get to know other people on your course events outside in parks or having Q&A with the lecturer outside would not lead to anyone turning up then more social things for people on your course might be a good idea.

A different institution providing the same course my twins are doing is doing it face to face on the whole in lecture halls - students wear masks.

Changes in the amount of face to face teaching (at least where I am) have largely happened due to a resurgence of COVID and changing government guidelines

This.

I still find some of the parental views on this thread baffling - as if universities are somehow in a magic bubble where COVID doesn't make people severely ill, as if universities are only populated by extremely fit & healthy 18 year olds, and as if university staff (all of them, not just teaching staff) are somehow immune from both the diseases and obeying the actual laws of the land, and the local regulations around COVID.

And I second what other tutors have said: the attendance at my (online, small group face to face) teaching is far better than in pre-COVID times, as are my office hours.

face to face on the whole in lecture halls - students wear masks

In-person teaching like that is happening at my place. But as the number of large lecture theatres or other kinds of spaces we have is limited, we can only accommodate around 30-50% of our teaching in this way.

We keep all the windows open, and students are strictly socially-distanced. We've had an all university email warning us that extra layers of warm clothing will be needed through the winter ...

Some feel they were prom and fees because we will be like an upper sixth in school - face to face. That has then not ended up happening.

Because COVID. The reality for the whole world. But also because this is not how university works anyway. University has never been "like an upper sixth form." And nor should it be.

We as students are trying to organise our own zoom sessions to discuss modules.
We had a whole year what's app group and I have set up whats app groups for each module and the lecturer had been happy to post the link on the module page.
So it's possible to organise our own stuff. It's easier with law as it's all reading mostly. Can be done at home.

And I get as much teaching as we ever did, normal lectures (sone done Live, sone pre-recorded).
The ore recorded ones now tend to last 3 hours! So we're getting value for money over normal 2 hour lectures!
And tutorials as normal. Just miss the student chat beforehand really

A ton of students don't engage anyway. 1/4 of people attended the live lecture in one module (10-12 so hours weren't an issue). No one has a camera on, in tutorials no more than2-3 people actually speak beyond say bye at the end. It's depressing at times. Least face to face people would have to contribute a bit!

@burnoutbabe

We as students are trying to organise our own zoom sessions to discuss modules. We had a whole year what's app group and I have set up whats app groups for each module and the lecturer had been happy to post the link on the module page. So it's possible to organise our own stuff. It's easier with law as it's all reading mostly. Can be done at home.

The only thing I've found with that is that we have it all done on FB but there are 1 or 2 students on the course not on there. We've got our own discussion boards and file sharing section of the VLE shell now - well we had it all along but no one had noticed its existence till I went poking around one morning!

We've been asked NOT to have cameras on in main lecture rooms - the bloody IT can't take the strain of it! We tend to put them on in breakout groups or if asked to - but the whole sound quality goes to absolute shite if more than a couple of people have theirs on as a general rule.

Like I say - my big gripes with online stuff is that the IT infrastructure just is not quite up to scratch with it! That one I reserve the right to be pissed off at the uni big bods for (not the actual teaching staff) because they bloody knew their student numbers, knew the timetable slots so the demand was pretty predictable on that front and they've just tried to cheap arse it.

I miss my whole campus routine though - my train ride in with a coffee and the news, getting in early and getting some work done (I was usually on campus by 8am so not a morning-shy student) and then the interaction - because ours is really a course where everything develops from discussion and very little in the way of direct "lecture" style teaching as the cohort is so small.

"I still find some of the parental views on this thread baffling - as if universities are somehow in a magic bubble where COVID doesn't make people severely ill, as if universities are only populated by extremely fit & healthy 18 year olds, and as if university staff (all of them, not just teaching staff) are somehow immune from both the diseases and obeying the actual laws of the land, and the local regulations around COVID."

Change whatever you need to change to keep people safe. Just don't pretend it's the same, or better, and charge the same.

Why should students working online at home pay for catering they're not using?

Why should students being given fewer hours than previous cohorts pay the same tuition fees as previous cohorts?

We all know why changes are being made, just not why universities expect students to keep paying tuition, rent and catering as if it was any other normal year. Well to prop
then up financially I suppose but when has the customer ever been responsible for propping up a struggling business.

@rawlikesushi

"I still find some of the parental views on this thread baffling - as if universities are somehow in a magic bubble where COVID doesn't make people severely ill, as if universities are only populated by extremely fit & healthy 18 year olds, and as if university staff (all of them, not just teaching staff) are somehow immune from both the diseases and obeying the actual laws of the land, and the local regulations around COVID."

Change whatever you need to change to keep people safe. Just don't pretend it's the same, or better, and charge the same.

Why should students working online at home pay for catering they're not using?

Why should students being given fewer hours than previous cohorts pay the same tuition fees as previous cohorts?

We all know why changes are being made, just not why universities expect students to keep paying tuition, rent and catering as if it was any other normal year. Well to prop
then up financially I suppose but when has the customer ever been responsible for propping up a struggling business.

Fully agree. Other businesses hit by covid aren't expecting their customers to pay the same for less.

Some college Unis are still insisting on the extra "college" fees despite most items on the list it is supposed to be for not actually happening. That's just taking the piss.

Universities aren't businesses.

We are not getting any extra funding to cover extra costs. Universities are subsidised by staff time (and often our own resources).

Tuition fees rarely cover the full cost of the education & infrastructure provided.

University-run residences rarely make a profit; in fact, many are subsidised by universities.

Think about how you want universities to survive post-COVID.

And take it up with your MP and our governments. Not universities or individual academics.

It is certainly difficult all round. I was sent an email from a hotel we sometimes use in France. I thought the charges might be much less - in stead they are the same and the things we particularly like about it - the steam, sauna, pool etc are all closed. So we won't be going, Students do not have quite the same choices.

I compared what I paid in the 80s for the same hall I went to by the way recently as I scanned my financial records. It is owned by the university and is self catering. The charges AFTER allowing for inflation are three times as high and the rooms are still the same. I was very surprised because when I compared my doctor uncle's 1936 Durham University fees bill and allowed for inflation then at £9k it is almost exactly in 2020 what the fees are today.

It would help if the state allowed parents contributing to students and those paying the fees and rents to put all that against the parents' tax bill as we are supposedly all in this together and yet a lot of us are not being paid by the state, not getting things like self employed or covid help or universal credit (because we have savings) and very little NHS care at the moment too so it all seems pretty much a one way street. Also many a parent has been forced into 20% less pay even where furlough does not apply for the same hours or you lose your job which I don't think has been foisted on to academics and school teachers never mind nurses.

Accomadation and course structure are different topics and are paid for independently though- it’s not one big package and you can’t be refunded for one because of the other. I agree students shouldn’t be forced to stay in halls but the constant criticism of online teaching and acting like staff just can’t be bothered isn’t fair. There’s no reason (with the exception of practical classes- which are we are still running) why the content that is recited to students in a lecture theatre cannot be similarly conveyed to students online. Yes it’s miserable that they aren’t getting the social interaction that human beings generally enjoy but that’s not the purpose of the degree and that unfortunately is the outcome of a global pandemic- we as a university cannot change that. A lot of our students are actually preferring having recordings to go back through when making their notes rather than trying to write it all down in a live session. And unless everyone I know in academia across multiple universities are all lying- most courses do not have fewer hours. Sorry if that’s happening to your dd Sushi but that is not the universal approach.

It's not good enough. No other business gets to say 'we're trying our best so please just keep paying even though you're not getting what you were promised

That is EXACTLY what is happening at my gym, actually... fees are the same, but no changing rooms, fewer classes, fewer loos, more difficult to book onto anything.

I do know some universities are rising to these challenges less well than others. I don't think my own dd's is doing especially well, in fact. If they're getting less than they should, that's not ok.

I would say though that we're having to be fantastically creative and work really hard to make up the validated hours, which we have to do - one two hour seminar is now three one hour seminars, for example, but to make sure the students are still getting the material we are posting activities, monitoring them, engaging with the responses and replies that students post, setting tasks that we will feed back on.... but the vast majority aren't doing them.