20
IMPACT
We’re Angry and Upset: Class of 2022 Got Only 29 Full Weeks of Teaching
Hannah Penny shares her frustration and sadness about a university experience marred by pandemics and industrial action. If there was a photograph of my optimistic cohort as we walked through the University of Nottingham’s gates for the first time in September 2019, you would see us beaming with excited anticipation as the best years of our lives lay before us. Back then, we thought we had almost 70 weeks of teaching ahead of us. Soon we’ll be leaving university, having had only 29 weeks of in-person teaching. Honestly, it could not have been helped. Lecturers couldn’t have averted a global pandemic or the pay gaps that they still face (try hard as they might). Yet, I can’t help but wonder if the graduates of ‘22 might have had the unluckiest university experience imaginable. In our first year, the six strike-affected weeks seemed like a fun holiday for a good cause. We went to Rock City and relished the lie-ins. Strikes ended abruptly when the world fell apart. Fair enough. One Friday in March, we were assured that the pandemic wouldn’t affect universities. These are the institutions that stayed open during World War Two, after all. On the following Monday, we were in our hometowns with two pairs of jeans and enough underwear to last us our three-week break. We wore those jeans until we collected our things in June. In September 2020, we took a second stab at it, feebly returning to friends we hadn’t seen in months. The government ushered us back, pleading ‘please pay your fees and accommodation everything is back to normal, remember?’ By the 9th of October, there were 1,510 active COVID-19 cases at the University. Countless students isolated in box rooms and shabby houses, unwell and afraid. University went online and many went back to their hometowns once more. In the 20/21 academic year, nearly £1 billion was spent on unlived-in accommodation. All this time, fees were being paid at full price. Russell Group universities collectively gained £115 million in furlough money. It remains a mystery as to where this money has gone. It’s certainly not in student refunds or lecturers’ bank accounts…
The staff is not to blame for the lack of in-person teaching in our second year. For Teams break-out rooms, however, we can hold them responsible. I know my professors’ living rooms better than I know the bottom half of my coursemates’ faces. Meanwhile we're scoffing bowls of chips as a ‘substantial meal’ in order to buy vodka cokes in chilly pub gardens and obeying a state-mandated 10 pm curfew. The apocalypse campus experience par excellence. Hundreds of years abroad were being cancelled or attended virtually, and Lenton is no Los Angeles. And for those staying closer to home, the pandemic squandered the possibility of European living too… enter Brexit stage right. By our third September, we thought this would be our year. We were back on campus, back out partying and soaking up our final chance at university life. In October, nightclubs were boycotted as students were being spiked by injection. Then, strikes again. In December, people ran home early again or were spending Christmas Eve isolating in student houses alone. In our Spring semester, so far, there has been a petrol crisis, the government has been outed for ‘Partygate’ and a war has broken out. The strikes strike again and through it all, we have been foggy-headed and tired. Trying to write dissertations without tutors and essays without lectures. Somehow, in a time characterised by illness, mourning, masks and Teams, we have made it to the end. Somehow, lots of us have still enjoyed it. My only sadness is that we are finding our feet in Nottingham just as we are being handed our caps and gowns and saying goodbye. By Hannah Penny Illustration by Shaha Alzamil Page Design by Chiara Crompton
