[Help] Return to Uni in lockdown?

[Motogull]

IHe rents a flat with another friend.

In that case, my view is let him go back but tell him he'll get no help with a fine if he gets caught at a party.

 

[Hampster Gull]

Any parents of students here who have returned to uni in the current lockdown?

One of my sons wants to return back to his uni, citing various friends who are back. I know arts and sciences are given dispensation to return to face to face teaching but it seems clear to me that other students are allowed back only in exceptional circumstances, ie. unsuitable learning environment or accommodation, or for reasons of health and safety. The govt repeats this criteria several places but rather unhelpfully, the Dean of his uni has been a bit more vague, mentioning well-being as well.
Now my view is that the instruction is clear to stay put, but he argues that he is suffering mentally and can't study as well here at home. I do agree with that but I don't consider his position as exceptional, merely one replicated by hundreds of thousands of others up and down the country.

I'd be interested in any views, be they from parents or students particularly if you have faced a similar decision.

I know this situation is unique, and from what my son says there are plenty of parents not letting their kids go back, but for what it’s worth I think you should treat him as an adult, which at what 18, 19 or so he is, and let him choose. It’s sub optimal either way and I think many are suffering so it would be nice to give them a little control of the situation, however minor

 

[bluenitsuj]

My daughter went back on 30th Dec along with her 4 housemates. All 5 have had covid already. Paying rent so every right to do so.

 

[Starry]

i have 2 in uni. one has chosen to stay at home and is in process of asking to repeat this year, the other returned after christmas. i think the returner just wanted some kind of normal and to be where felt like she is actually doing something. they are both adults so not like we could 'let' or not let them go or stay, i think it was important to let them control this decision making when already so much has been stripped from them. we have 7 younger kids at home and any kind of studying is not easy here. the one who stayed home would have returned to minimal face to face study the one who returned is 100% online (and very little at that)

 

[bluenitsuj]

Apparently they’re all going back to party and stuff the lockdown rules.

Generalising

 

[Curryisgreat]

By all means cite your concerns, but let him make his own decision then support him as best you can. He is an adult after all.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

I know this situation is unique, and from what my son says there are plenty of parents not letting their kids go back, but for what it’s worth I think you should treat him as an adult, which at what 18, 19 or so he is, and let him choose. It’s sub optimal either way and I think many are suffering so it would be nice to give them a little control of the situation, however minor

I agree. I have treated him as an adult. I made it clear to him that it is his decision as he is 20, a grown man and now has to take responsibility. However, whilst I have misgivings about him returning in the current situation due to government rules, I cannot morally help him if I conclude that I am in opposition. That gives him a problem as he needs me to take a car full of stuff back with him.

Edit: Since replying to this post I notice there are several people stating similar sentiments to [MENTION=17963]Hampster Gull[/MENTION]. I had never said 'NO' as I would have if he was 14 or something.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Yes, well he is. The situation sucks.

I'm on the other end of this. My uni (one of the big 3 in London) started dribbling on about getting students back, during last summer, after having initially shifted to online teaching way back last April. This imperative has all come from government. It is a sort of 'policy' to strive to have students on campus and doing things. This is because there is a fear students will demand their fees back (shhh! I'm not supposed to say this!) so, by giving one tutorial a week, rotated among the class so the students go in once every 4 weeks, we can claim we are definitely providing on campus teaching. Oh yes.

During the autumn I was made, by my head of department (for teaching, I have a different one for research - that makes so much sense), to create social distanced lab practicals for the course I run in the Spring. I spent countless hours redoing the time table (which is then uploaded by two separate sets of administrators to create an 'official' timetable and an online coursework submission page that directs marks to a central mark reservoir - it all has to line up). And then there is room bookings, run by a third lot of administrators.

When I spoke to the chief lab tech and the person who manages our animal licences for labs, in early December, they told me to **** off, because it wouldn't work, since the students can't work with living tissue with me standing six feet away. So we scrubbed it and instead I came in for a day to be filmed doing the labs, with a new plan that students would watch the video then come in on 3 occasions in Jan/Feb, in groups of 8 or 9 at a time (instead of 15 occasions in groups of two at a time) and 'do' the practical simply by taking data from a previous experimental record. I had to go through all the time-tabling shit again, but I refused to change the submission deadlines for written work etc.

I did all this before telling my HoD. She was not happy. She started asking me if I could set up a whole lot of different lab practicals that did not require me leaning over students' shoulders. Practicals that did not map to the syllabus. Just so we could say we did do practicals. I said 'I'd think about it' (would I, ****?).

This was late December. On Christmas Eve at 5 pm I got an email from college to say that, alas, there would be no on campus teaching for a bit. 'We will review it at the end of Jan' (that soon changed to the end of Feb). So I switched everything again. Luckily with the filmed practicals I had some contingency.

So term started. All my lectures are pre-recorded. The 'practical' consists of students watching my movie, reading the schedule then having a live session online where I go through a PowerLab recording of a single experiment, then the students do the same. The files are massive and it took me ages to edit them and put them on a sharepoint. Later I gave them all a big excel spreadsheet with class data from a previous year and they analyse and use this in the write up as their 'results'.

They could have done all this from home. A few sensible ones have done just that. One is at home in the West Indies. The hours are a bit weird for her when she is forced to do 'live' tutorials on other courses, but she's OK.

I got a new email last week asking me to invent reasons for on campus sessions from March. This means me changing my timetable (and everything that goes with it) again. I asked 'why are we doing this'. I was told 'to give students a flavour of lab work'. I asked what of they can't come in due to having not returned to London? I was told 'they would not be disadvantaged if they can't do it'. I said if there is no disadvantage to not coming in, why come in. Silence.

This is 110% BULLSHIT and sweaty-handed panic. Students are stuck in flats or halls of residence, pointlessly spending money on rent, in many cases isolated, rarely if ever actually coming on to campus, and if so for bullshit made up exercises, just so we can say we did teach them normally (occasionally).

There is a lot of mental health issues. The completion rate for my first written exercise is at a record low. Students are even failing to submit mitigation requests (for extensions) and will lose marks as a consequence. I sit on the mitigation panel every Wednesday morning and we are inundated.

This is shithousery at its English finest. My 'leaders' are wandering around congratulating one another for their achievements. I have email folders awash with attachments outlining new procedures for this and new protocols for that. We have people in full time employment constantly rewriting rules for social distancing, how many students can be in a room of X proportions, updated on the latest advice from HMG, 'following the science'.

I suggested on NSC last Spring that if you had a kid at uni, the best plan is to defer till 2021-22 beceause there would be nothing of substance on Campus till January 2021 ('semester 2') at the earliest, and if Covid is a seasonal flu, nothing of substance for the entire academic year. Did anyone follow my advice? Hard to do so in the face of the warm wind of bullshit blowing in from HMG, perhaps.

And yet the majority of students are stoic and understanding. At least where I work. And in the sciences. It may be different in humanities at the university of the South Bank etc. Yes, good students, stoic, understanding that in May or June when most are vaccinated and summer is upon us all of this will be essentially over....the students get it, but academic 'leaders' and HMG don't. Who knew?

Sadly our 'government' has been like a teenager who has just discovered online gambling - constantly at it, hedging bets, changing the groundrules in a desperate attempt to achieve the impossible - keeping the spread of Covid down while keeping everything normal. A pefect storm of ****wittery. And where I work, aided and abetted, eagerly, by doe-eyed fools who couldn't strategise a shit let alone deal with the ramifications of Covid.

I'm very sorry for those of you with kids at uni. You have been lied to.

Someone said to me last Spring if we bin a year of uni there will be double the number of students next year, too many bums for the seats. Actually that was before we discovered Kaltura and narrated powerpoints. I expect we could easily mitigate against big classes for a year by doing more online. We already have all our lectures recorded now, with captions, all good quality stuff. In fact I suspect we have been forced, accidentally, into a game change....going to university (certainly for a year at a time) may soon become a thing of the past for many kids, with so much doable online......

For courses with practical work it is different. The medical students and dentists have all been on campus throughout. But even that regime could be edited so all the labwork occurs at once. Anyway, if there are sensible modifications that might be made we can rest assured they won't happen.

Incidentally, I don't know how the vaccination prioritisation is working across the UK, but at my uni anyone can rock up and get vaccinated. No prioritization, and very little ID checking. This isn't properly advertised and there is no guarantee you get a jab the same day you turn up (which is why I haven't gone up to London on the off chance). Students can be jabbed too. Not a lot of people seem to know this.

Best wishes to parents and students

 

[Hampster Gull]

I agree. I have treated him as an adult. I made it clear to him that it is his decision as he is 20, a grown man and now has to take responsibility. However, whilst I have misgivings about him returning in the current situation due to government rules, I cannot morally help him if I conclude that I am in opposition. That gives him a problem as he needs me to take a car full of stuff back with him.

Edit: Since replying to this post I notice there are several people stating similar sentiments to [MENTION=17963]Hampster Gull[/MENTION]. I had never said 'NO' as I would have if he was 14 or something.

That’s the generic dilemma for the “inbetweener” years, the need for independence and the need for support

 

[dazzer6666]

I'm on the other end of this. My uni (one of the big 3 in London) started dribbling on about getting students back, during last summer, after having initially shifted to online teaching way back last April. This imperative has all come from government. It is a sort of 'policy' to strive to have students on campus and doing things. This is because there is a fear students will demand their fees back (shhh! I'm not supposed to say this!) so, by giving one tutorial a week, rotated among the class so the students go in once every 4 weeks, we can claim we are definitely providing on campus teaching. Oh yes.

During the autumn I was made, by my head of department (for teaching, I have a different one for research - that makes so much sense), to create social distanced lab practicals for the course I run in the Spring. I spent countless hours redoing the time table (which is then uploaded by two separate sets of administrators to create an 'official' timetable and an online coursework submission page that directs marks to a central mark reservoir - it all has to line up). And then there is room bookings, run by a third lot of administrators.

When I spoke to the chief lab tech and the person who manages our animal licences for labs, in early December, they told me to **** off, because it wouldn't work, since the students can't work with living tissue with me standing six feet away. So we scrubbed it and instead I came in for a day to be filmed doing the labs, with a new plan that students would watch the video then come in on 3 occasions in Jan/Feb, in groups of 8 or 9 at a time (instead of 15 occasions in groups of two at a time) and 'do' the practical simply by taking data from a previous experimental record. I had to go through all the time-tabling shit again, but I refused to change the submission deadlines for written work etc.

I did all this before telling my HoD. She was not happy. She started asking me if I could set up a whole lot of different lab practicals that did not require me leaning over students' shoulders. Practicals that did not map to the syllabus. Just so we could say we did do practicals. I said 'I'd think about it' (would I, ****?).

This was late December. On Christmas Eve at 5 pm I got an email from college to say that, alas, there would be no on campus teaching for a bit. 'We will review it at the end of Jan' (that soon changed to the end of Feb). So I switched everything again. Luckily with the filmed practicals I had some contingency.

So term started. All my lectures are pre-recorded. The 'practical' consists of students watching my movie, reading the schedule then having a live session online where I go through a PowerLab recording of a single experiment, then the students do the same. The files are massive and it took me ages to edit them and put them on a sharepoint. Later I gave them all a big excel spreadsheet with class data from a previous year and they analyse and use this in the write up as their 'results'.

They could have done all this from home. A few sensible ones have done just that. One is at home in the West Indies. The hours are a bit weird for her when she is forced to do 'live' tutorials on other courses, but she's OK.

I got a new email last week asking me to invent reasons for on campus sessions from March. This means me changing my timetable (and everything that goes with it) again. I asked 'why are we doing this'. I was told 'to give students a flavour of lab work'. I asked what of they can't come in due to having not returned to London? I was told 'they would not be disadvantaged if they can't do it'. I said if there is no disadvantage to not coming in, why come in. Silence.

This is 110% BULLSHIT and sweaty-handed panic. Students are stuck in flats or halls of residence, pointlessly spending money on rent, in many cases isolated, rarely if ever actually coming on to campus, and if so for bullshit made up exercises, just so we can say we did teach them normally (occasionally).

There is a lot of mental health issues. The completion rate for my first written exercise is at a record low. Students are even failing to submit mitigation requests (for extensions) and will lose marks as a consequence. I sit on the mitigation panel every Wednesday morning and we are inundated.

This is shithousery at its English finest. My 'leaders' are wandering around congratulating one another for their achievements. I have email folders awash with attachments outlining new procedures for this and new protocols for that. We have people in full time employment constantly rewriting rules for social distancing, how many students can be in a room of X proportions, updated on the latest advice from HMG, 'following the science'.

I suggested on NSC last Spring that if you had a kid at uni, the best plan is to defer till 2021-22 beceause there would be nothing of substance on Campus till January 2021 ('semester 2') at the earliest, and if Covid is a seasonal flu, nothing of substance for the entire academic year. Did anyone follow my advice? Hard to do so in the face of the warm wind of bullshit blowing in from HMG, perhaps.

And yet the majority of students are stoic and understanding. At least where I work. And in the sciences. It may be different in humanities at the university of the South Bank etc. Yes, good students, stoic, understanding that in May or June when most are vaccinated and summer is upon us all of this will be essentially over....the students get it, but academic 'leaders' and HMG don't. Who knew?

Sadly our 'government' has been like a teenager who has just discovered online gambling - constantly at it, hedging bets, changing the groundrules in a desperate attempt to achieve the impossible - keeping the spread of Covid down while keeping everything normal. A pefect storm of ****wittery. And where I work, aided and abetted, eagerly, by doe-eyed fools who couldn't strategise a shit let alone deal with the ramifications of Covid.

I'm very sorry for those of you with kids at uni. You have been lied to.

Someone said to me last Spring if we bin a year of uni there will be double the number of students next year, too many bums for the seats. Actually that was before we discovered Kaltura and narrated powerpoints. I expect we could easily mitigate against big classes for a year by doing more online. We already have all our lectures recorded now, with captions, all good quality stuff. In fact I suspect we have been forced, accidentally, into a game change....going to university (certainly for a year at a time) may soon become a thing of the past for many kids, with so much doable online......

For courses with practical work it is different. The medical students and dentists have all been on campus throughout. But even that regime could be edited so all the labwork occurs at once. Anyway, if there are sensible modifications that might be made we can rest assured they won't happen.

Incidentally, I don't know how the vaccination prioritisation is working across the UK, but at my uni anyone can rock up and get vaccinated. No prioritization, and very little ID checking. This isn't properly advertised and there is no guarantee you get a jab the same day you turn up (which is why I haven't gone up to London on the off chance). Students can be jabbed too. Not a lot of people seem to know this.

Best wishes to parents and students

Great post - good to have some inside info and it bears out what I've heard from a few friends about how their kids are being messed around. I also know a few that are quite happy to be in Halls - essentially it's better than being at home for some I guess (more freedom etc) and the handful I know about are essentially keeping to social bubbles in their halls (or at least they are telling their parents that's what they are doing)

I'm lucky in that both my kids are in Masters (one P/T and one F/T) programmes so only 'attending' one day a week (the one F/T is on placement the rest of the week which is continuing as it's captured under the 'elite sport' exceptions). Neither have needed to go into Uni at all for months - everything has been online, although the eldest (at Edinburgh) has gone into the library a few times (where a desk has to be booked and numbers are v limited)

Your advice to take a year out was very sound.......

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

I'm on the other end of this. My uni (one of the big 3 in London) started dribbling on about getting students back, during last summer, after having initially shifted to online teaching way back last April. This imperative has all come from government. It is a sort of 'policy' to strive to have students on campus and doing things. This is because there is a fear students will demand their fees back (shhh! I'm not supposed to say this!) so, by giving one tutorial a week, rotated among the class so the students go in once every 4 weeks, we can claim we are definitely providing on campus teaching. Oh yes.

During the autumn I was made, by my head of department (for teaching, I have a different one for research - that makes so much sense), to create social distanced lab practicals for the course I run in the Spring. I spent countless hours redoing the time table (which is then uploaded by two separate sets of administrators to create an 'official' timetable and an online coursework submission page that directs marks to a central mark reservoir - it all has to line up). And then there is room bookings, run by a third lot of administrators.

When I spoke to the chief lab tech and the person who manages our animal licences for labs, in early December, they told me to **** off, because it wouldn't work, since the students can't work with living tissue with me standing six feet away. So we scrubbed it and instead I came in for a day to be filmed doing the labs, with a new plan that students would watch the video then come in on 3 occasions in Jan/Feb, in groups of 8 or 9 at a time (instead of 15 occasions in groups of two at a time) and 'do' the practical simply by taking data from a previous experimental record. I had to go through all the time-tabling shit again, but I refused to change the submission deadlines for written work etc.

I did all this before telling my HoD. She was not happy. She started asking me if I could set up a whole lot of different lab practicals that did not require me leaning over students' shoulders. Practicals that did not map to the syllabus. Just so we could say we did do practicals. I said 'I'd think about it' (would I, ****?).

This was late December. On Christmas Eve at 5 pm I got an email from college to say that, alas, there would be no on campus teaching for a bit. 'We will review it at the end of Jan' (that soon changed to the end of Feb). So I switched everything again. Luckily with the filmed practicals I had some contingency.

So term started. All my lectures are pre-recorded. The 'practical' consists of students watching my movie, reading the schedule then having a live session online where I go through a PowerLab recording of a single experiment, then the students do the same. The files are massive and it took me ages to edit them and put them on a sharepoint. Later I gave them all a big excel spreadsheet with class data from a previous year and they analyse and use this in the write up as their 'results'.

They could have done all this from home. A few sensible ones have done just that. One is at home in the West Indies. The hours are a bit weird for her when she is forced to do 'live' tutorials on other courses, but she's OK.

I got a new email last week asking me to invent reasons for on campus sessions from March. This means me changing my timetable (and everything that goes with it) again. I asked 'why are we doing this'. I was told 'to give students a flavour of lab work'. I asked what of they can't come in due to having not returned to London? I was told 'they would not be disadvantaged if they can't do it'. I said if there is no disadvantage to not coming in, why come in. Silence.

This is 110% BULLSHIT and sweaty-handed panic. Students are stuck in flats or halls of residence, pointlessly spending money on rent, in many cases isolated, rarely if ever actually coming on to campus, and if so for bullshit made up exercises, just so we can say we did teach them normally (occasionally).

There is a lot of mental health issues. The completion rate for my first written exercise is at a record low. Students are even failing to submit mitigation requests (for extensions) and will lose marks as a consequence. I sit on the mitigation panel every Wednesday morning and we are inundated.

This is shithousery at its English finest. My 'leaders' are wandering around congratulating one another for their achievements. I have email folders awash with attachments outlining new procedures for this and new protocols for that. We have people in full time employment constantly rewriting rules for social distancing, how many students can be in a room of X proportions, updated on the latest advice from HMG, 'following the science'.

I suggested on NSC last Spring that if you had a kid at uni, the best plan is to defer till 2021-22 beceause there would be nothing of substance on Campus till January 2021 ('semester 2') at the earliest, and if Covid is a seasonal flu, nothing of substance for the entire academic year. Did anyone follow my advice? Hard to do so in the face of the warm wind of bullshit blowing in from HMG, perhaps.

And yet the majority of students are stoic and understanding. At least where I work. And in the sciences. It may be different in humanities at the university of the South Bank etc. Yes, good students, stoic, understanding that in May or June when most are vaccinated and summer is upon us all of this will be essentially over....the students get it, but academic 'leaders' and HMG don't. Who knew?

Sadly our 'government' has been like a teenager who has just discovered online gambling - constantly at it, hedging bets, changing the groundrules in a desperate attempt to achieve the impossible - keeping the spread of Covid down while keeping everything normal. A pefect storm of ****wittery. And where I work, aided and abetted, eagerly, by doe-eyed fools who couldn't strategise a shit let alone deal with the ramifications of Covid.

I'm very sorry for those of you with kids at uni. You have been lied to.

Someone said to me last Spring if we bin a year of uni there will be double the number of students next year, too many bums for the seats. Actually that was before we discovered Kaltura and narrated powerpoints. I expect we could easily mitigate against big classes for a year by doing more online. We already have all our lectures recorded now, with captions, all good quality stuff. In fact I suspect we have been forced, accidentally, into a game change....going to university (certainly for a year at a time) may soon become a thing of the past for many kids, with so much doable online......

For courses with practical work it is different. The medical students and dentists have all been on campus throughout. But even that regime could be edited so all the labwork occurs at once. Anyway, if there are sensible modifications that might be made we can rest assured they won't happen.

Incidentally, I don't know how the vaccination prioritisation is working across the UK, but at my uni anyone can rock up and get vaccinated. No prioritization, and very little ID checking. This isn't properly advertised and there is no guarantee you get a jab the same day you turn up (which is why I haven't gone up to London on the off chance). Students can be jabbed too. Not a lot of people seem to know this.

Best wishes to parents and students

Harry, thanks for that looooong post. Many points of interest that I am sure many of us working and studying in education will find resonate sympathetically with our own experiences.

Hard to respond in full except to congratulate you for working under such crappy conditions, and thank you for your efforts for those students. Bosses, who needs 'em?!

My son knew about the risk this year, I had already thought things would pan out this way, but, strengthened by your advice I mooted giving it a miss. However, he already had an aborted year the year before when he was working out what exactly he wanted to do, and so had tried 2 (!) unis already. I quite understand in that situation why he still chose to start in September.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

That’s the generic dilemma for the “inbetweener” years, the need for independence and the need for support

Exactly! Nail, head!

 

[Hampster Gull]

I suggested on NSC last Spring that if you had a kid at uni, the best plan is to defer till 2021-22 beceause there would be nothing of substance on Campus till January 2021 ('semester 2') at the earliest, and if Covid is a seasonal flu, nothing of substance for the entire academic year. Did anyone follow my advice? Hard to do so in the face of the warm wind of bullshit blowing in from HMG, perhaps.

And yet the majority of students are stoic and understanding. At least where I work. And in the sciences. It may be different in humanities at the university of the South Bank etc. Yes, good students, stoic, understanding that in May or June when most are vaccinated and summer is upon us all of this will be essentially over....the students get it, but academic 'leaders' and HMG don't. Who knew?

Sadly our 'government' has been like a teenager who has just discovered online gambling - constantly at it, hedging bets, changing the groundrules in a desperate attempt to achieve the impossible - keeping the spread of Covid down while keeping everything normal. A pefect storm of ****wittery. And where I work, aided and abetted, eagerly, by doe-eyed fools who couldn't strategise a shit let alone deal with the ramifications of Covid.

I'm very sorry for those of you with kids at uni. You have been lied to.

Someone said to me last Spring if we bin a year of uni there will be double the number of students next year, too many bums for the seats. Actually that was before we discovered Kaltura and narrated powerpoints. I expect we could easily mitigate against big classes for a year by doing more online. We already have all our lectures recorded now, with captions, all good quality stuff. In fact I suspect we have been forced, accidentally, into a game change....going to university (certainly for a year at a time) may soon become a thing of the past for many kids, with so much doable online......

For courses with practical work it is different. The medical students and dentists have all been on campus throughout. But even that regime could be edited so all the labwork occurs at once. Anyway, if there are sensible modifications that might be made we can rest assured they won't happen.

Incidentally, I don't know how the vaccination prioritisation is working across the UK, but at my uni anyone can rock up and get vaccinated. No prioritization, and very little ID checking. This isn't properly advertised and there is no guarantee you get a jab the same day you turn up (which is why I haven't gone up to London on the off chance). Students can be jabbed too. Not a lot of people seem to know this.

Best wishes to parents and students

As ever great insight.

For me, I did talk to youngest about deferring a year but he was adamant and i was not strongly opinionated either way. Perhaps if I’d seen your spring posting I might have been, maybe maybe not. I have tried to help my kids be independent, to make their own informed calls.

There is also a powerful pull for the youth to be part of their own cohort, in this case the cohort going from a levels to uni, part of their people on the same journey. It would have required the govt to step in and have called it early for all, which this govt has not been able to do, bar some notable exceptions. Genuine q, has any govt stopped uni for a year? Without that there was a natural pull with peers to complete the next step on their life journey. And of course there are years 2 and 3, the same pull for those already at uni.

And what would they have done for a year in their bedroom at home. No job, no friends around. In our case, I strongly suspect my youngest would have struggled mentally far more in that situation.

Whilst the educational experience is poor it’s not valueless. Maybe. The social life for those physically attending campus or nearby is poor compared to what many have experienced, but it’s not nothing. It’s a mixed experience from what I am seeing. They know it’s all suboptimal but it’s part of their life experience, part of their cohorts life experience.

I worry more about what jobs are available to students as they leave. As a minor insight, we have pulled our grad scheme, which took on 150-200 a year.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

As ever great insight.

For me, I did talk to youngest about deferring a year but he was adamant and i was not strongly opinionated either way. Perhaps if I’d seen your spring posting I might have been, maybe maybe not. I have tried to help my kids be independent, to make their own informed calls.

There is also a powerful pull for the youth to be part of their own cohort, in this case the cohort going from a levels to uni, part of their people on the same journey. It would have required the govt to step in and have called it early for all, which this govt has not been able to do, bar some notable exceptions. Genuine q, has any govt stopped uni for a year? Without that there was a natural pull with peers to complete the next step on their life journey. And of course there are years 2 and 3, the same pull for those already at uni.

And what would they have done for a year in their bedroom at home. No job, no friends around. In our case, I strongly suspect my youngest would have struggled mentally far more in that situation.

Whilst the educational experience is poor it’s not valueless. Maybe. The social life for those physically attending campus or nearby is poor compared to what many have experienced, but it’s not nothing. It’s a mixed experience from what I am seeing. They know it’s all suboptimal but it’s part of their life experience, part of their cohorts life experience.

I worry more about what jobs are available to students as they leave. As a minor insight, we have pulled our grad scheme, which took on 150-200 a year.

Very good points.

I don't know of any nation that has suspended university of a year. But I haven't checked.

I understand that being 'at college' in some form may be better than not being at college at all, and being not at home may be better than being at home. We could have encouraged 'being at college' (or nearby - ish) for the small benefits obtained, sure, but the constant chopping and changing over teaching delivery and assessment can't be right. The educational benefits of 'being there' are nil as far as I can see. I am delivering no on campus teaching, none on the courses I run and none on the courses run by colleagues. I have spoken to numerous students who are living in halls or flats who have not been on campus at all. They are simply hanging around in the vecinity. If it were me (someone who did not socialise much with other students at the time, someone with little money and living in a crappy cold flat) I'd be massively annoyed, especially given that students have been encouraged to return (which, to me, means 'we want you on campus and you will lose out if you stay at home').

I have mentioned elsewhere that when I did go into work, assured that it was safe, I found security staff wearing no masks, a student pushing past me on a staircase (wearing no mask) and the member of technical staff assigned to assist me wearing his bandanna as a mask (and removing it repestedly). I had a parking space booked but the person on the gate had not been told so I blocked a street while they faffed about. And a fire alarm went off while I was filming and everone in the building piled out in a melee, with half of them not wearing masks. It was a horrible experience.

All in all, making the priority 'getting students on campus' and to hell with everything else seems wrong to me. But maybe I'm just peculiar.

 

[nordicgod]

About 50,000 students got off the train at Falmer last evening after having a lovely day out on the beach at brighton

 

[Chicken Run]

Any parents of students here who have returned to uni in the current lockdown?

One of my sons wants to return back to his uni, citing various friends who are back. I know arts and sciences are given dispensation to return to face to face teaching but it seems clear to me that other students are allowed back only in exceptional circumstances, ie. unsuitable learning environment or accommodation, or for reasons of health and safety. The govt repeats this criteria several places but rather unhelpfully, the Dean of his uni has been a bit more vague, mentioning well-being as well.
Now my view is that the instruction is clear to stay put, but he argues that he is suffering mentally and can't study as well here at home. I do agree with that but I don't consider his position as exceptional, merely one replicated by hundreds of thousands of others up and down the country.

I'd be interested in any views, be they from parents or students particularly if you have faced a similar decision.

My son started at Leeds Sep 20, came home for Christmas and returned mid January, his fairy pragmatic view is 7 months disruption out of a 4 year degree is a minor irritation, he’s annoyed that he didn’t get to sample a full of freshers week but apparently they are doing a combined yr 1 & 2 in September, oh to be young and carefree eh.

 

[Green Cross Code Man]

About 50,000 students got off the train at Falmer last evening after having a lovely day out on the beach at brighton

..

 

[Doonhamer7]

D7 jr went back before lockdown - decision based on better drinking with some mates at uni than none at home. It appears most of them got Covid before Xmas anyway. None of his flat mates have come back but there are 2-300 out of 700 in his halls of residence so seems to making lots of new friends. It was all going well until the university starting having security guards walking into flats unannounced and catching groups of them (5-10) and then be hauled in front of disciplinary panels. I don’t know why a decision was made that there bubble was everyone in the halls.

 

[LadySeagull]

My youngest went back to his shared flat before lockdown even though it's not a million miles away from the family home.

I think it's good for them to be back in the accommodation that they are paying for, even if the lectures and work (such as it is) are sparse and remotely-run at the moment. Better to be with other students and getting back into the Uni culture and independence that comes with cooking for themselves, IMHO.

 

[drew]

In that case I'd leave it up to him. If you're paying for something, you have the right to use it, in my opinion anyway. I'm not sure if it would even be illegal as surely it would count as essential travel, particularly if he has books/notes at his accommodation?

Especially since the risk of catching COVID has diminished significantly since term started in January, it may come down to more of a 'common sense' approach as opposed to going purely by the book, especially if he says he's suffering mentally. Hope you can find some sort of solution that works.

I'm not sure that you can say that just because you're paying for accommodation it is a reason to go back. I've got a car that I'm paying for but I can't just drive anywhere I like. People will own tents but they can't go camping.

There may well be more valid reasons to go back but paying for accommodation isn't one of them.