Oxford and Cambridge current students

[sandybayley]

Nearly filled up the old one...

So an upsurge in cases will be down to students going against the guidance, not people rushing to Primark:
In a written ministerial statement, the universities minister, Michelle Donelan, said: “The movement of students across the country poses a risk for the transmission of the virus, particularly because of the higher prevalence and rates of transmission of new variants.” Office for National Statistics figures suggest that 75% of students are already at their term-time addresses.

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Donelan added: “The government and I recognise just how difficult and disruptive the last year has been for students. However, the roadmap is designed to maintain a cautious approach to the easing of restrictions to ensure that we can maintain progress towards full reopening.”

It’s really, truly, pathetic.

It's so ridiculous. D just wants to move from spending most of her time in her bedroom at home to spending most of her time in her university room, via a journey in our car. We're doing two tests a week as D2 is at school, all negative. The local news tonight showed town absolutely heaving with people out shopping. To try and blame students for any resulting rise in cases is unfair and frankly a bit thick.

What puzzles me too is how they propose to vaccinate these young people, it’s going to be a logistical challenge when most university students are registered with a doctor in their university city or town but they are all at home. For final year students it could be really tricky, there’s the potential for a lot of young people to slip through the net.

I think when they allow this group to be vaccinated they will just book it online and can then pick their centres. Certainly ds who is in group 6 booked his first for centre local to home and has his second booked for back in Oxford.

DDs plan is to get her first vac in Cambridge after she's done her finals and big project, and then also book her booster there. If the timing is such that she's not back there to start her job anyway, she and DH will drive as she wants some long drive practice so she's confident of driving her car (currently mine) between here and there alone.

Is there a simple guide anywhere to which C colleges have been sympathetic, and which very strict, regarding Covid returners? Beginning to get twitchy about what may happen for the freshers next year, and would want to prepare DD (who has an offer to start next year) if her prospective college is one that has been one of the strictest.

Her course is one that has practical elements, but not lab based or medical. 3rd year Tripos students returned on 8th March.

The non-return is bonkers. People are able to travel miles to our village stay for a few days before the next set of tourists turn up without confirmation of a clear test, but kids can't return to another household with testing twice a week.

DD is packing her bits into boxes for a return on Tuesday. I will miss her, but I am so glad she successfully negotiated a return. It sounds as if they will be able to access the studios, so she will finally meet the others on her course.

I've just heard that a student at one of the Cambridge colleges has committed suicide. So awful and shocking to hear of a young life cut short. That college is now bending over backwards to let students back.

My DS is planning to return at the beginning of May but would in many ways rather be at home. He's not especially family oriented but has no motivation to return to a life of almost complete isolation despite all of us trying to help him to see that things may be getting better by that stage. He says that at least here he has someone to eat with. He hasn't really made any friends there and returning holds no attraction. He fully expects to fail his exams and isn't sure what to do next whether he might be allowed to retake the year and (hopefully) get on better with in-person teaching, or apply somewhere else entirely, or have a complete rethink. He's thoroughly disillusioned with the Cambridge approach which seems to involve very little actual teaching and an absolutely unmanageable (for him) volume of extremely difficult work. I am very puzzled myself. He is very clever (confirmed by ed psych report, not just his fond mama) and would have achieved in real life the top A-level grades he was granted during that weird non-exam season. I guess it's his dyslexia that is a huge stumbling block, and made all the harder by online learning. Sorry for repeating myself, this is like therapy!

Changing the subject from my gloom and doom and going back to your earlier point, @mutterphore -- I think your lovely boys should be doing their own laundry all the time! And they could also cook at least a meal a week.

Regarding the vaccinations, I think you can book them wherever you want to, it's not linked to your GP. Both DD and I have had our first dose because of a contact at the clinic who tipped us off to spare doses going begging at the end of the day. We've booked our second doses online, me locally and her in Oxford.

How unspeakably sad pant. My heart goes out to the family and friends of that poor student.

It seems hard to believe that lockdown hasn't compounded your DS's woes. I do hope he goes back this term to at least try to find some positives, but it would be totally understandable if he can't bring himself to do so.

I am beyond angry at the (totally unnecessary) burden that has been placed on our young people and I'm perplexed (and angry too, there's a theme here) about the inequity between colleges. Oxford and Cambridge colleges, if you're reading, please show some humanity to your undergrads.

Pant that is incredibly sad.

This last year has been so hard on young people. The support for them has been woefully inadequate with large sections of society/ media/MPs writing them off pejoratively as either "middle class" or "youths" depending on which side of that split they sit.

I can understand your DS' reluctance to return. DD is in a similar situation of not knowing very many people, not having formed friendships and not knowing if they will have an opportunity to do so this term. Having her Boyf there and the college putting in extra pastoral support for her has been a help. It is still daunting for her & I doubt she would have returned if it had been different. I know that it will improve when she gets there so I am pleased she is going.

Terribly sad @PantTwizzler - our young people have had to deal with this awful situation for too long now. Even the most resilient (and I count DS1 as pretty resilient) are reaching their breaking point.

I was a bit worried that DS1 was going to be alone again when he returns to Oxford at the weekend - he was the only one in a house of 8 from Week 4 last term. It looks like two others (Medic and Experimental Psychology) will also be back.

Plus more applications are being put in to be back on welfare grounds - which surely applies to nearly everyone now

That's extremely sad. That poor student.

PantTwizzler. How hard for your lad. It must be heartbreaking and worrying for you too. What does his personal tutor say? it sounds like conversations need to be had. It might be, for instance possible for him to transfer to a different course? If he found the work manageable, would the other issues come good do you think?

This article in the Oxford Student might be interesting to O parents.

www.oxfordstudent.com/2021/04/13/colleges-issue-conflicting-advice-for-returning-students/

It highlights the different approaches being taken by colleges to requests to return. Three colleges are mentioned:
Univ are asking students complete an online form stating that they have a reason to return but do not need to specify it
Teddy Hall have encouraged all students to contact the Accommodations Manager if they plan to return
Balliol have asked students to wait for the time being

That all sounds promising and I have to say that DS's experience with his college has been very positive. Let's hope all the colleges fall into line quickly.

Heartbreaking news about the poor Cambridge student's suicide @PantTwizzler; I can't even imagine what the family is going through .

Taking DD1 back on Saturday (Oxford) - this was arranged weeks ago due to her having face-to-face teaching for field trips in weeks 1/2 - but she says in the last 48 hours all her friends have had their requests to return on mental health grounds granted (some of them applied weeks ago). Thankfully I'm on annual leave this week, enabling me to nag her into getting her packing organised (AKA sorting through all her stuff which she dumped in the spare room in December at the end of Michaelmas, and which she hasn't touched since!).

You might all be interested in this urgent question.
parliamentlive.tv/Event/Index/d068cda1-70f8-42c2-9aca-2ce1ed142610 at 10:32

D1 reports a cunning plan hatched on Oxfess - simply recategorise the university - if it was the Oxford Zoo of HomoSapiens they would be able to reopen right away.

That is heartbreaking news from Cambridge, that poor student and their family.

PantTwizzler, I'm so sorry to hear about your DS. This really isn't good enough, after everything he's been through to get a place at the university. Surely everyone should be pulling out all the stops to make things much much better for him there. It makes me very angry to hear about his experience.

DS2 is now waiting in trepidation for the 'hardest Oxford interview of my life', when he meets on Zoom with the person responsible for assessing applications to return at his college, in the next few days - and also right before his birthday too. None of us is sleeping and can't think of much else right now expect will he or won't he be allowed back. It feels similar to the application process and waiting for the interviews then and then waiting for an offer.

I am furious that he's having to go through this kind of thing yet again and that the stress is totally unnecessary, if his college had only done what DS1's Cambridge college did and just get them all to fill out a brief form to say they want to come back. The dragging out of the process is dire and torturous when he's supposed to be concentrating on revision for collections and then his Prelims and in normal times, would also have been able simply to look forward to going back.

I'm hoping so much that he can go back even if it's not a great experience being back. He desperately needs to be away from home again. His brother doesn't feel he can look forward to his own return unless DS2 can also return.

Well his well-being is certainly suffering massively, under these circumstances! He'll be much better once back as he has a way of structuring his days from a very early morning run followed by meals, intense work, several activities - if any of them are going on and hopefully some contact with peers, as he did make a good range of contacts including postgrads. as well as undergrads.

I feel very upset too to hear about the Cambridge student suicide. Being a young person at any time can be hard but the pandemic has hit that generation on the cups of adulthood and independence, worse than any other, I feel.

I can't believe your ds is being interviewed to assess whether he is suffering enough to return Mutterphore. What a cynical way to treat students.

@mutterphore my DD was advised to get the support of her tutor before she had her zoom call with the person deciding about returns. Might be worth your DS doing likewise. I really think most colleges are rubber-stamping returns —colleges are just going through the motions of questioning everyone so they can justify decisions if challenged by PHE or whoever. I think mentioning every difficulty experienced at home and emphasising the impact on MH will suffice. My DD didn’t have to go in to MH details and wasn’t quizzed about that (which would be hugely inappropriate IMO).

Some of the colleges appear to have shares in hoop manufacturing factories.

It baffles me that any centre of higher education would think any of its charges didn’t have mental health issues right now and it depresses me to think they can’t summon the backbone and big big brains they have to help.

@mutterphore - are you saying that your DS is to be interviewed to assess whether he will be allowed to return or is it more of a 'check in' conversation? I've not heard of any other colleges 'interviewing' in this way. If they are I'm appalled.

@sandybayley That’s exactly what my DD had to do. One of her friends was refused during an earlier application.

It's a shame in some ways that we're all (myself included) coy about the colleges our DC attend because between us we'd probably be able to create a league table of colleges according to their treatment of students.

Colleges encouraging everyone to return and simply asking for return dates would be top.
Colleges interviewing students and turning some down on the basis of insufficient suffering would be somewhere near the bottom..