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.

Also, presumably it goes without saying that academics don't set fees, mostly think fees were a terrible idea, and are frustrated by uni management and by the government having told students to come back when we knew what would happen? I don't think anybody should have been wooed back this autumn - we're just doing our best and more to try to make it feel worth it, but we know it's shit for students who are trapped in halls and can't socialise. It's just that none of it is in our control.

yep, plenty of services are now charging more for items and you get less (physio has gone up £5 but you get 30 mins not 45 as need to clean between customers etc). Which is fine.

Yet you have the choice. The issue over universities is many pretended there would be XYZ service and now there is not and people made the biggest financial commitment of their lives on the basis of the false promise. With the gym you know and eg I haven't booked a hotel because the service we normally have is not there and I don't want it without that service.

Did students really think it was going to be like before though? I know some of them were told there'd be more on-campus learning than there was before cases soared, but they knew it wouldn't be normal, surely?

Pivoting to online once a critical mass of staff and students can't do on campus because they're ill or need to isolate isn't reneging on a promise, it's an unfortunate neccessity in an evolving and worsening situation.

They do actually have the choice too! Which I'm sure some are taking....

Well local police in my area have spent quite a bit of the weekend breaking up large student parties. Students could take some responsibility for following the restrictions were all under (not mixing households for example).

Then university staff won’t be put at risk and might be happier about doing more Dave to face teaching. While students at my university are attracting police attention and being fined, no way am I putting myself at risk.

face to face. Don’t know who Dave Is!

@TheMerrickBoy

Did students really think it was going to be like before though? I know some of them were told there'd be more on-campus learning than there was before cases soared, but they knew it wouldn't be normal, surely?

Pivoting to online once a critical mass of staff and students can't do on campus because they're ill or need to isolate isn't reneging on a promise, it's an unfortunate neccessity in an evolving and worsening situation.

They do actually have the choice too! Which I'm sure some are taking....

Trouble is that they're not "pivoting to online once a critical mass of staff and students can't do on campus because they're ill or need to isolate".

In my son's case, they were promised face to face tutorials/seminars, inter-college activities, clubs & societies etc which simply never happened. They weren't stopped because of isolation etc - none of that happened before isolations etc.

I could understand if things had happened in freshers week (as promised) and the first "proper" week, before cases started rising, but they didn't.

Students are now, rightly, asking just when all the things promised will actually happen and there is a strong suspicion that they won't, and that the students have been conned into paying £6k for their uni accommodation when there is simply no need as literally everything is online. Certainly among my son's flat, and others at his campus, there's going to be some pretty hefty campaigning for being released from their accommodation contracts if "face to face" things don't start happening for their return after Christmas - many are already saying they probably won't be going back.

@MissMarplesGlove

Well local police in my area have spent quite a bit of the weekend breaking up large student parties. Students could take some responsibility for following the restrictions were all under (not mixing households for example).

Then university staff won’t be put at risk and might be happier about doing more Dave to face teaching. While students at my university are attracting police attention and being fined, no way am I putting myself at risk.

As you well know, it's a small minority of students and, yes, the police and campus security should be stopping law breaking. That doesn't justify the majority, who are behaving and complying, suffering a pretty crap Uni experience that they're paying £15k for!

@user1497207191 I wholeheartedly concur.

Yes that is problem for some - they were misled. Others weren't but even so are getting bad deal and perhaps should be getting something knocked off the fees. Eg I was looking at holiday company terms for next summer and they have clauses protecting the holidaymaker in loads of detail - if XYZ happens, you get this refund, if ABC happens it is this amount back. There is none of that with universities. My sons have met no one on their courses and do not know anyone. In a sense it doesn't matter as it's law post grad, a means to an end but it is an utterly different experience from usual and for the same fee.

The universities are having to evolve with changing government restrictions. It’s not intentionally misleading students when they have no more information than what those changes are going to be then the students do themselves. It was clear there was going to have to be a strong online element to courses, however how strong that element is depends on covid rates in that particular area. Surely students and parents didn’t think universities would be immune to all these changes?

@Zippy1510

The universities are having to evolve with changing government restrictions. It’s not intentionally misleading students when they have no more information than what those changes are going to be then the students do themselves. It was clear there was going to have to be a strong online element to courses, however how strong that element is depends on covid rates in that particular area. Surely students and parents didn’t think universities would be immune to all these changes?

Unis weren't honest about how little F2F there'd be. Yes, infection rates are high at the moment, but they weren't during the first 2 weeks. IF, and only IF, there'd been more F2F in the first week or two, which was then cancelled as the weeks passed and infections grew, then fair enough, it could be argued Unis were responding to the changing covid situation. But in reality, it's clear that Unis knew there'd be next to no F2F, no events, etc., but deliberately conned students into thinking there'd be reasons to be at Uni just to get them signed up for Uni-owned halls/flats. I've got screen shots from my son's uni over the Summer and through to end of Autumn talking about blended learning, "reduced lectures" etc., and the websites changed the wording in early September (once accommodation had been signed for) removing most of the references to face to face activities and that was before the infection rates were starting to get out of control.

They did not know the extent of face to face teaching at all. We didn’t even know as staff what the timetables would be until the day they were released to students. As soon as we opened the covid rates rocketed and we had to reduce. Now we have moved to tier 3 it’s even more limited. This is a changing situation we cannot predict what is going to happen next.

Revisiting this thread to say that DD finally had a meeting with her tutor this morning. 8 students and they had their cameras on. She said only 3 of them spoke (including her) and they all said they were struggling with online learning. She said by the sound of it the tutor is struggling more than they are! So not great.

That's not good! Sounds a bit like my DS. All online lessons, one tutor session via zoom. He knows no-one on his course. His flat in halls is now in isolation as one of the occupants has had a positive test...most of the flat went home for lockdown. So he is stuck in a small, hugely expensive room with the odd zoom lecture for company. I can't see him lasting the year.

Sorry to hear that @ProperVexed it sounds extremely difficult circumstances. DD is in 3rd year so in a flat with friends which is a bit easier and we’re in Scotland so not in full lockdown and I think her part time job in a shop is helping, albeit she has to wear and mask and visor which she’s not enjoying. She also finally took my advice this week and set up coffee dates with 2 uni friends. I hope things improve for your DS must be so lonely if flatmates gone home.

Thanks @IndigoApple . I think it is hard for all of them. Universities are responding as best they can ( though I am extremely cross that he was promised a mixture of face to face and online...right up to the point that he arrived!) He could help himself with fellow course mates...he tried via a group chat, got no replies and gave up, he is desperately shy!
Naively I didn't think it would be this bad.
Glad you daughter is able to get out and work...that must really help.

Manchester University are giving students 2 weeks accommodation refund and letting them off their contracts if they wish to vacate and return home. Inevitable really given the lack of face to face teaching - no doubt other universities will be under pressure to do the same.

www.manchester.ac.uk/coronavirus/accommodation-pledge/

Thanks for that, Kazzie. Really interesting.

Let's hope others follow that too and give something back for the time they're not able to be in their accommodation.

I like the being able to break the contract with no financial penalty if they decide to move out during the year too.

If being released from their accommodation contracts means even, say, a quarter of students go home and don't return to Uni in January, the halls/flats won't be as crowded and covid is less likely to spread among the remaining three quarters.

I can't understand why Unis have put students into full occupancy halls/flats, often 8,12, or even 16 sharing tiny kitchens, whilst at the same time, leaving other halls/flats (or even entire floors) completely empty. (Yes I know, it's all about money). Surely it is common sense to spread the students out more, so say, have 6 sharing a flat/kitchen usually for 8, just to give them more space to keep apart and reduce risk of infection spreading on common areas such as kitchen worktops, cookers, fridge doors, etc. Also if one student tests positive in a flat, if there are fewer living in that flat, fewer others will have to isolate for 14 days.