Students vs Stigma
There is little worse than inconsiderate people.
For instance, the builders next door. The builders who like to start singing out of tune at the crack of dawn, who like to drill until 5pm, who only agreed to work out a schedule with us when I got upset in front of them out of sheer frustration and lack of sleep.
I don’t have their luxury of working elsewhere, this flat is my only option. The photo above is how i look while working, tired and fueled by tea. Attending zoom university is near impossible when you have an angle grinder and Take That for background noise.
This is just one of the many scenarios Universities have no idea about. They don’t know that I wrote my essay while my Mum was poorly with Covid-19. They don’t know that the only reason that essay was finished is because 4 of us religiously swapped and proof-read each other's work every week.
Studying a Masters course, paying £7,200 for 4 hours online, no access to resources, elements of a course cancelled, not being able to study in a library or meet our classmates is HARD.
We don’t want emails with motivational quotes.
We don’t want empty reassurance.
We want no determinant policies. We want better value for our money. We want more understanding of how difficult it is to concentrate on a pre-recorded lecture when you haven’t left your house in days, when you didn’t see your family at Christmas, when your friend has died, when your too scared to go to the supermarket, when your wifi speed means you can’t even load the lecture slides.
Sometimes I wonder if Boris even knows there are 2.38 million of us students rolling our eyes at him. I wonder if he is allergic to the words “university students” because he sure as heck hasn’t uttered them enough.
It is taking blood, sweat and tears to get through our degrees. Learning isn’t fun anymore, it has become a chore and that is a brutal reality to acknowledge. It is a massive effort to pay attention, stay organised, produce the same quality and quantity of work as we would in any other year.
Furthermore, strikes are rumoured to be happening. Not from students, from university staff. For the fourth year in a row.
During my undergrad I missed a years worth of teaching due to strikes and now it is set to happen all over again. Forgive me for not seeing the caring side of university.
Student mental health services can’t cope with the demand. Ambulance calls to university halls have surged. Suicides have increased. Students everywhere are having to juggle personal struggles with their education and tutors are just watching, sitting back, waiting for one to drop.
Our tuition fees are supposed to cover library resources, wellbeing, graduation ceremonies - where is our refund for the ones that have not happened?
It is near impossible some days to want to work towards a future that is so uncertain.
Trying to remind myself of why I am here sometimes feels like walking around with a burning blister but refusing to take the shoe off.
I hit a wall.
Massively.
So instead of thinking about why I am here studying, I started thinking about why I am here full stop. Not in a morbid way. In a way that allowed me to contemplate all the bright places. All the things outside of academia that are worthwhile.
The things that are getting me through these disheartening times.
It’s the women on my course, with whom I can laugh and rant and share the stress of uni with.
It’s the friend I have made, whom without meeting face to face yet, has already planned our first cocktail night.
It’s trying to teach my friend how to knit over facetime and laughing at how terribly wrong it went.
It’s buying a blender and making milkshakes twice a day.
It’s having time to read non-course related books and actually enjoying them.
It’s baking cakes and covering them in pink icing, sprinkles, chocolates hearts, and then having a slice with every cup of tea.
It’s getting to live with someone who knows a good dance is the answer to a lot of problems, but so is a facemask and a good cry.
It’s the person who sends voice notes that make you smile, the one who lets you talk about your new favourite book even though you’re making no sense because you talk too fast.
It’s seeing the ethereal sunsets.
It’s walks in the morning air when the world is so silent you could swear it wasn’t moving.
It’s finding a two hour long recording of a Panic! At the disco concert on Youtube, getting dressed up in the funkiest outfit, and turning the kitchen into the greatest gig the world has seen.
These are the things getting me through.
Not cringey emails from a lecturer I have never heard of before.
We are trying so hard and sacrificing so much. The least universities can do is say “I see you, I hear you, how can I support you?”
We are not just numbers. We are not just statistics.
We are writing these articles to show that we are human, we are suffering and that is okay. We are not alone in our feelings and the stress that is boiling up inside is a totally valid reaction to the chaos in the world.
We are worthy of so much more than the hand we have been dealt but we are playing a bloody good game.
Keep learning. Don’t let anything take your knowledge from you.
Become so educated they can’t ignore you.
Don’t silence yourself for anyone's comfort.
- Lucy