STUDENTS IN CARDIFF SPOKE TO TOM DAVIES ABOUT HOW THEY HAVE BEEN LEFT ALONE WITH HUGE WORKLOADS IN THEIR FIRST YEAR AT UNIVERSITY. POLICE HAVE BEEN INVADING THEIR PRIVACY AND MANY ARE UNABLE TO EARN A LIVING. NOW THEIR MENTAL HEALTH IS SUFFERING AS THE EFFECTS OF ISOLATION IN INADEQUATE ACCOMMODATION TAKES ITS TOLL. TODAY, THEY SPEAK OUT AND SAY THEY SHOULDN’T HAVE TO PAY £9,000 A YEAR TO LIVE LIKE THIS.
Words & Images by Tom Davies
Students have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic, but the way their universities have responded has often made the situation even worse. Many students are struggling financially, unable to pay bills and rent because they’ve either lost their jobs, been put on Furlough or have just had to survive on meagre savings.
At the same time, they have been harassed by campus security and police. In one instance, detailed below, a student says police in Cardiff took to looking through windows in people’s private halls of residence rooms to see what was going on inside.
But it is the prospect of still being charged record high fees by their institutions that is stirring real anger among students who spoke to me. “ …I’ve got an in-person seminar once every two weeks? And that’s all I’ve got. It just really makes me really angry because I’m paying nine grand a year to just sit at a desk and do nothing really,” says Jasmine, a criminology student.
Like so many others, she is furious at being expected to pay almost £30,000 for a three year course whilst being locked in a room.
“I think it’s a bit ridiculous, to be honest, because it’s not the same experience at all…Everyone that I’ve talked to is more annoyed about the Uni fees for sure. I think they should be [reduced] because, as I said, it’s not the same experience that like my brothers had before me and all of that.”
Instead of seeing new people and going to seminars, she says some students have never even stepped into the university at all.
“I think, especially in Tally South, we’re meant to have some really great parties and all that,” Jasmine goes on. “But I’ve seen police literally looking under people’s blinds to see if they’re having a party or not, which I think is illegal. I’m actually pretty sure it is because it’s like an invasion of privacy, looking under closed blinds.”
“I do feel like that is a bit too much to pay for just everything online.”
On top of all of this, students are being given vast amounts of reading and preparation to do for lessons, and finding the workload impossible whilst being isolated. “People have been raising the issue, especially on my course, they’re giving way too much work,” Jasmine says. “They’ll give us our module maps for the week of the work we have to do and tell us we have to read like 65 pages and analyse them and make notes for a seminar on the same day. And it’s not fair, we’re overloaded with work.”
Katie, who studies music, shared many of these views. “I mean, everything’s on your screen,” she says. “I don’t know any of my lectures in person. I have tutorial lessons, once a week in person, everything else is online. I’m literally just paying to have it like online university. And yeah, don’t get to go in a lecture hall or anything.”
“I do feel like that is a bit too much to pay for just everything online,” she says with frustration. “Just being able to go out and also just having lectures, not just partying but like actually being to go to the library for a day rather than a two-hour slot.”
On top of this comes the added pressure of equipment and the solitary nature of lone working.
“…you realise it’s relying on you to do it all,” explains Katie, “…if you’ve got laptop problems, it’s really draining to try and sort them out. Like my printer does not work and I can’t afford any printer for my course. It’s really essential so I have to go all the way to the music block and then use the printer that eats up my money and doesn’t give me my printing. It’s quite difficult”
“It is hard, because you’ve got to motivate yourself, because you’re just in your room, you don’t really leave.”
The financial strain on students, who often struggled before the pandemic, has only worsened, with service sector jobs drying up whilst expenses have stayed the same.
Emma, who studies ancient History, says she had a job before coming to university but without that, would have struggled to get by. She says the mental difficulties of studying in these conditions need to be addressed
“It is hard, because you’ve got to motivate yourself, because you’re just in your room, you don’t really leave. So it’s really difficult to like, motivate yourself to actually do it”. Another student I spoke to mirrored Emma’s thoughts “I just feel completely unmotivated. But I feel like that’s a problem across the board, with a lot of students”.
Many coming to university this year say that the effect on their mental health and the added stress of trying to do uni work alone at home is making it even harder. This had led to some students simply not doing the work they are meant to do and having to ask for extensions, or developing potentially unhealthy coping mechanisms.
When asked how they were dealing with the stress, one simply told me: “Smoke, Drink, Sleep”. Another said that she thought that the universities should be doing more to help vulnerable students during the pandemic. “They are not supporting it enough. They don’t really reach out. And for a lot of people, they won’t reach out themselves.”
