One hour a fortnight F2F for £9k

[GaribaldiGirl]

My daughter did the first year of her degree from home. Going into the second year all students were told they were ‘expected to be in Edinburgh’ from September. So we’ve paid a deposit on her flat and she went off this weekend, so excited to be finally going.
Today she discovered that as well as her lectures all being online, she has just one hour of face to face contact a fortnight. And all the Welcome Week stuff she was excited about has limited numbers and needs to be prebooked and, yes you’ve guessed it, it’s all full.
It’s so utterly rubbish I despair. Surely this isn’t right?!
Are other universities back to normal?

@Xenia

New that is the issue - for many the university cell like room is smaller than i n a prison which is fine if you spend all day in the library and lots of the night out with friends. it is totally different if you haev to watch things on line there. I would have thought they could put up big screens in lecture hall where students could go to watch them even if the lecturer is in absentia in their own home or office on the campus. jMy son's last year was 100% online and his bed room was not big enough for a desk in his shared flat. He came home for his exams for the bigger rooms and wifi - not something all students can afford and many students do not have suitable places to study or work at home either.

I’m sure that is a fairly common experience. If unis think this is a cost saving measure it hasn’t really been thought through.

The lecture theatres are not empty where I am, they are booked solid for lectures with fewer than 50 students and other classes. There is so much demand for teaching space that new classrooms have been found by converting other spaces. The room timetable is jammed solid from 9 to 6.

No on line lectures at all for vet med (yet), and last term when they walked past the lecture theatre is was empty. So they will try it out. Be nice to have lectures together rather than all alone again 🤷‍♀️.
Still hoping they will be in person.

What is this 50 rule ? Really weird as I'm in assembly every week with 300+. Have 70 in lecture theatre at school (max capacity) for after school clinics. For 18 year olds.
Why 50 ? Do not understand where that rule has come from.

@Chemenger so why not have lectures with 100 ? Why 50 ?

Why 50? Because that is what the Scottish Government say we must do.

Especially as very high numbers of students have had the vax - compared to hardly any secondary kids yet 🤷‍♀️

Tell it to Nicola Sturgeon. I’d far rather stand in front of a lecture theatre and talk for an hour than spend a couple of hours recording the same material looking at an unflattering image of myself. It takes twice as long because half the time the tech doesn’t work, you have to stop and start because you lose your train of thought or realise you’ve said something wrong or ambiguous. In front of a class I have no problem backtracking, repeating or apologising for being confusing. In a recording you can’t really do that. Then there is the utterly soul destroying process of captioning. They are “automatic” I have an image of one of Terry Pratchett’s imps half listening to what I say and guessing what I mean. So when I say “advice here” it’s totally unsurprising that it comes out as “bison herd” or that it simply slips in the most offensive phrase it can think of. Editing them takes at least twice as long as the recording to do (we are legally obliged to caption recoded material). Then we will be running many more tutorial type session than usual (in classrooms) there are days when either I or one of my colleagues does 8 of these in a day, repeating the same stuff. These are additional classes added this year to give contact time in groups acceptable to Queen Nicola. So my message is don’t blame the universities blame her (well strictly speaking the Scottish government but they are pretty much the same thing). I’ve been doing this job for 30 years and last year was the worst year of my career, seven days a week, week after week (on a 4 day a week contract, I can’t imagine what hours my full time colleagues were putting in).

Surely the unis are telling Nicola Sturgeon?! The unions?

Ah, didn't realise you were in Scotland. Still a weird rule though.

We love our weird rules in Scotland

@user1487194234 😊 I love Scotland 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿.

Wonder what the reason will be for no f2f lectures at Bristol. Don't think wee Nicola governs there (yet).

That is a lot of money for English students to pay for so little face to face teaching in Scotland! Perhaps the Scottish Government feels it can do this as University is free for Scottish students?

@Snowdrop30 but there is no 1m rule in schools in Scotland ? Before someone jumps on me, I know schools are not Unis. But large gathering of people in close contact transmit the same (well, less if vaccinated, like Uni students).
I know it's not staff's fault. Just done v v strange decisions being made for poor Uni students.

Ds did a masters last yr in his bedroom nearly 7k.

Thanks for the uni lecturers and staff here explaining the system. Makes a lot of sense. Dc2 was complaining earlier his timetable isnt out and he starts back tomorrow at Strathclyde.

@Snowdrop30 none of it's your fault 😊. As a teacher being bashed on the internet over Covid has been constant.
I wish the Unis in England would be honest and open with their students and explain why they can't do f2f lectures, as no rules preventing it. My DD was at Reading festival for 5 days with 105,000 others, but now can't sit with 100 in an airy lecture hall (it is a huge room with big windows and high ceiling - sat in it on open day).
Double vaccinated, had Covid, same position as all her friends.

@mumsneedwine Thanks and sorry, I went off on a bit of a rant there, didn't I? The pressure has been intense. I guess teachers get that one...

That said, I can see why students (on both sides of the border) have concerns about in person teaching. But as someone else has said up thread, the mood around uni buildings is actually pretty good. I'm at a different uni and our student timetables are just coming out too, so students will know how much in person teaching they face shortly. The most important thing is, we are all really happy to see our students back - and they seem so happy to be back. Fingers crossed this year is going to keep getting better and better.
.

That is absolutely awful. No excuse for this whatsoever. What a disgraceful cop out.

In England I am not sure there is a 50 person restriction however and we have had big events now so surely universities are allowed by law to have full lecture halls again?

@Xenia they are allowed. They are just not doing it. That's the annoying part.