Imagine a time where us students were able to sit next to one another without a
lingering ‘track or trace’ devil sat upon our shoulders, a time where we were able to
walk in and out of a classroom freely, be able to attend shops, parties, social events
without the piercing eyes of a receptionist or doorman itching to ask if we live in the
building or if we’ve been positive. That time was 2019… What the fuck even
happened to 2020.
I began my university life this September. Like any other student, I eagerly packed all
my shit up back home, waved goodbye to my family and hello to my independence,
stocked my alcohol cupboard up to the brim ready to meet my fellow peers, and
upon arrival I did meet them… well, sort of. I opened my laptop, turned on my
webcam and there they were...ish, I mean I saw their names, a few faces and a few
blank person-like icons that occasionally spoke when spoken to. So can I say I met
them? Does talking to voices count as a meeting? Either way, it seems this was my
class; this was my lesson. Sat here at 9:00 in my pjs, half asleep talking into a laptop
for an hour before crawling back into bed.
Welcome to university life.
I suppose in the grand scheme of things, I should be grateful that technology and
social platforms like Snapchat exist. I have not only been able to Snapchat some
people in my class but even facetime a few, so it was an upgrade… kind of, not
really. I can’t lie, it's been hard making friends. Not only does every person steer
away from you in the streets, so bad that you might as well have a ‘COVID’ stamp on
your forehead, but how am I supposed to meet the people who are meant to be my
lifelong friends if I can’t even sit down with them for a drink. How am I supposed to
enjoy the company of civilisation as a student whilst entrapped in a dark square box?
I feel trapped.
I'm not going to lie, I am lucky to have a course where we are chatty (so thank you to
the some-what saviour that is social media) I have not been completely and utterly
alone virtually, like some unfortunate few but for the most part, how tortuous is it that
the only person we can see on the daily is our teacher sat in their living room with
coincidentally the WORST WiFi connection known to man. I swear to god that my
teacher is sat somewhere in the Sahara desert because fuck me, the knowledge so
far of my course is how to piece together distorted sentences, a fallen victim to the
lag. I feel more like Sherlock Holmes then a university student.
YouTube is my saviour.
Let's all just top-off talking about the elephant in the room here, the Government
should not have charged or been charging each student 9K to do our lessons from
home, to use zoom. Literally, what equipment are we using? What trips are we
taking? What uni life are we experiencing worth 9K? I don't know about you, but me
being more at home has just hindered my bank account more just to fill the boredom
between each zoom call. They 100% should have at least halved our learning
finances because they are leaching from us whilst our tutors have no choice but to
resort to break out rooms and YouTube assistance. I honestly think this entire zoom
experience is a shamble, and I’m sad to say this is my first year at university with the
government charging me full amount to not even be given a proper freshers week.
