With the return of lockdown, most students have had to reconcile their expectations with the reality of this semester. We were expecting to return to pubs, restaurants and meeting friends, and instead we were greeted by the return of Zoom and co.
As college students, this second lockdown affected us differently. Many of us were lucky enough to return home for the first one, and spent it surrounded by the comfort of people we’ve known our entire lives. This time around, we’re far from home, allocated to random apartments, with luck determining a large part of our lockdown experience. For many international students, people we did not know last September have become our only social contacts for 40 days.
The fact that every single society in Trinity’s replacement to in person events seemed to have been some kind of online quiz (and the low attendance to these quizzes) was proof that most people seemed determined to avoid this online ersatz of a social life like the plague. That kind of activity seems left behind in the last lockdown, destined to stay there forever. Maybe because it reminds us too much of the trauma of the initial lockdown? Who knows. But we’ve all had different ways of coping this time around. Some of us used the open college library as an excuse to justify a trip into town from time to time. Others holed up in their houses. Others froze outside by the cricket pitch to get a socially distant coffee or mulled wine as soon as that was an option. Some even took the risk of getting their lunch stolen by a seagull on their study break to see people. But the one thing that united everyone was a refusal to go back to Zoom to see their friends.
In terms of online learning, the second lockdown has also been very different. In March, not much time was left in the academic year. It was a question of how little we could do, and how few classes we could attend, to pass the few exams that weren’t cancelled or turned into essays. We knew it was a mess, that no one really knew what was going on, and that most lecturers had reassured us that they would be lenient in grading. Zoom University was still new, students and lecturers alike were grappling with the concept of it, and we quite liked being able to follow lectures from the comfort of our own beds.
And yet, now, three months into an online semester, the veneer has slowly peeled away to reveal the reality of lockdown combined with Trinity’s version of online lectures, seminars and tutorials: hours on end of looking at a screen, hectic timetables that don’t always allow for proper breaks, and a need for even more self-control and planning by students. This semester, it seems like students are either on top of everything and handling online lessons just fine, or struggling terribly and having even more trouble catching up as they normally would, considering it’s much easier to fall behind when you don’t need to physically show up to campus. It feels like there’s no middle ground.
More pressingly, it must not be forgotten that the threat of a bad internet connection looms over all our heads constantly. Not only do we have to worry about understanding the class, we’re now faced with the stress of our connection failing when we’re being called on by our TA or missing out on the important piece of information of the tutorial. For people living in student accommodation, there’s always a noticeable dip in connection at certain hours when most people are using the network to follow lectures. Some students are working on old computers that are struggling to cope with 6 or 8 hours of use a day. Our eyes, also, cannot possibly be positively impacted by so much screen time. In general, it seems like most students are tired of online learning. I know I am.
My least favourite part of online learning is, without a doubt, breakout rooms – when the lecturer or TA randomly assigns students to smaller groups within the call to work on an exercise. There exist three kinds of students in breakout rooms: those who do their best to do the exercise at hand, those who will contribute a sentence to the discussion and those who quite simply leave both their cameras and mics off. Either you don’t get enough time to finish the task, or you’re left with people you barely know, forced into awkward small talk and/or awkward silence. Quite frankly, this is an experience no one enjoys. And, yet, it seems to be a necessary evil, as it’s the only way some courses have to make students talk and discuss.
So, what’s the next step going to be? We’re out of lockdown now, but who knows what 2020’s got planned next? And 2021? The chance of a post-Christmas level 5 is high, and before the vaccines eradicate any other potential lockdown, there will probably be a few bumps along the road. Hopefully, we’ll be allowed on campus more by February, and by the summer, Zoom will actually be a thing of the past.
