Next year is going to suck.

On Monday, my university sent out an email saying that teaching would definitely be mostly delivered online next semester thanks to Coronavirus and that ‘Welcome Week’, their term for freshers’ week, is to be replaced by a week of introductory sessions. In short, next semester will be as disrupted and strange as the current one is proving to be. 

As a humanities student, I am not massively negatively affected by the changes to teaching style that Coronavirus has necessitated; I spend most of my time doing independent reading and essay writing anyway, and having recorded lectures accessible online has actually been a welcome change. My primary concern, therefore, is that with so little contact time anyway, I will now get even less time with my peers – we will not be prioritised for a return to small group teaching, since we do not need to be in labs. We were already subsidising the course costs of STEM students, and now there will be even less to justify the cost of studying a humanities subject. 

This pales in comparison, however, to issues which may affect more vulnerable students or those whose university experience relies on face to face situations. What worries me most is the impact that this announcement will have on students from lower income or unsupportive backgrounds. For students unable to access the internet due to lack of a suitable device, or due to an unreliable internet connection, this continuation of online learning means they will not be able to engage with or gain from teaching as well as those students with access to expensive technology. This is not to mention the fact that lower income students may be needing to prioritise earning money in such financially uncertain times and so might not be able to attend classes at all, or not be able to afford to return to university without the support of a part-time job. 

Thanks to the cuts to my department’s teaching budget and increases in class sizes, I also worry about the quality of education we will be getting next year. The teaching staff will be under more pressure since there will be less of them and they will have to adapt to teaching online, meaning that teaching provision will suffer. On the part of the students, not only will learning remotely be more difficult, as we have already all experienced, but so will getting more individual support and teaching. 

The collective mental health of the student body will be compromised too, as there will be much less opportunity to take our minds off the stresses of academia. Societies are likely going to have to reduce their activity and due to the closure of the library and other on-campus working spaces, some students might find it hard to be productive with no changes of scenery. There will be limited ways to socialise safely independently of university in pubs and bars and the normal distractions of cinemas or gyms won’t be available. 

And the poor freshers of 2020! Starting university will be even more daunting with added worries about the Coronavirus, and catching freshers’ flu may have more concerning consequences. With social distancing measures in place it will be even more difficult to make new friends than it normally is, and it is incredibly unlikely that clubs will be open in time for September, removing an essential part of the freshers’ week experience.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much we can do; the Coronavirus pandemic is obviously no one’s fault and we should be glad that the university isn’t planning to permanently reduce their face-to-face teaching, as Durham University are. 

The only thing I can really do is to just accept that next year is going to be very different. I am very lucky to be studying at university, even if (in comparison to this year) next year is going to suck. 

Serafina Kenny

Follow @serafinakenny_

Featured image courtesy of Streetwindy on Unsplash. This image has in no way been altered. Image license is available here.