Studying in the age of COVID-19

There are incredible disparities in being a student in the age of COVID-19. In some ways, it’s the best of times: due to the UK’s furlough scheme, for the first time ever I am being paid for my research. My job is closed and no longer needs me, so I have the opportunity to work on my project, reading and taking notes, pushing forward my discipline through full-time work and dedication. I wish it could be this way all the time, and that my labour was recognised and paid. We live in an age where I can buy books online, access papers from anywhere, contact my colleagues the world over and share everything with other researchers, which means I can continue what I’m doing through all this. The increased communication may even be a boon. But our postal service is stretched to the limits, and books I would borrow from the library are costing me hundreds of pounds and taking weeks to come – not to mention books I have in storage at my dad’s house from previous research are taunting me, unable to be worked on until I can go up and find them. I’m sharing a workspace with my partner, who is considered a key worker but able to work from home, and it’s difficult to focus on dry academic prose whilst he makes essential phone calls – not to mention the lack of space as my notes spread out and I cross-reference books or papers. Most mornings I work from bed as life in quarantine feels too much – it’s a long way from choosing to get up and go to the library at 8am, and it’s going to be a long time until I get that silence and focus again.

As an educator, I am worried about what people are getting from our content – I’m not so concerned about the cancellation of exams or the switch to accepting students based on their predicted grades as I am about losing the classroom space and the social aspects of education. My particular college, Birkbeck, is focussed on adult education, and I have never had a single lecture there where I didn’t learn something from another student whose comment from their life experience changed my perspective. To me, this is a serious blow to students coming in – they need to know that their perspective is valid, elucidating and unique. They will miss having the relationships with their professors that have encouraged me to push myself further and develop my throwaway insight into arguments suitable for a PhD – they will miss trusting them enough to give half-formed ideas and being challenged or praised as their teacher guides the discussion. I miss my supervisors, with whom I have an excellent relationship, but feel like now everything is by appointment online I can’t pop in to run an idea by them or share a brief thought; instead, I have to form it fully based on reading so that I don’t waste their time. Despite this, I am proud of my colleagues in the higher education sector. The quality of lessons being given over the computer is a testament to their devotion to their subjects, and the exploration of how we can give students a ‘university experience’ even in times like this speaks to the care we have for them and their wellbeing.

This pandemic is a life-changing cultural shift, and one of the questions we ought to take from it is the purpose of education: what are people hoping to get out of their school experience? For me, it’s the privilege to work on the big questions, to pull on the threads of culture and weave my findings into the tapestry of existing knowledge – as such, I’m being fulfilled by my furlough experience. That doesn’t stop me worrying about people hoping to get other things from their education, though, or the fact that one day my compatriots and I will have to find employment in an industry that was struggling before all this began. I hope people continue to choose education.