Who would want to be a student now?

Virtual Freshers’ week, socialising in ‘bubbles’, strict rules on sex… three writers look at how the pandemic is affecting university life

‘Essentially, I’m getting into debt to sit in a room with a computer’

University is expensive, but most of us are prepared to foot the bill because it’s a once in a lifetime experience: societies, parties, the camaraderie in your halls of residence – and lectures, too, of course.

But when I begin my social and political science degree at Cambridge later this month, these rites of passage may not only be off limits during freshers’ week but for the whole time I’m at university.

Our freshers’ week has been moved online, and there will be virtual events where I will hopefully “meet” people digitally. In the halls of my college, Lucy Cavendish, we have been told we will be grouped into bubbles, where everyone on one floor will be considered as one household (and we can take a selfadministered coronavirus test once a week, provided by the university).

But each college at Cambridge has its own policies. Mine has said other people are only allowed into the building for pre-organised academic reasons due to Covid – whereas my friend at another is allowed to have people from other colleges in their room.

I’m worried that I might be isolated and might not get to see many people – especially with the Government’s new six-person rule, something that completely goes against the nature of fun at university, where socialising in large groups is a huge part of the appeal.

Like every 18-year-old, I’ve heard so many tales of raucous freshers’ week goings-on – a time when you meet so many people, make a lot of friends and have one night stands (which health minister Lord Bethell has now advised against).

But cracking down on the size of groups we can hang out in, as will be the case from Monday, puts yet more restrictions on us and takes away further from the traditional uni experience.

Obviously, you can make friends virtually and there will be a lot of online events, like the Freshers’ Fair. But sitting in your room on your computer is just not the same experience – and, having spent months locked down, with all of our end of school and A-level celebrations cancelled, this significantly altered university experience feels like another blow.

Add to this the fact my lectures will be online, and the social scene you hear about at universities shrinks more still.

When it comes to meeting new people, my college itself may present challenges. It is usually reserved for women over the age of 21, but this year they made offers to 30 of us below that age who didn’t get into our original colleges due to issues with the Government’s A-level algorithm – our grades were wrong the first time but, by the time they were overturned, our first-choice colleges had given away our precious places.

So this is the college’s first year of having people my age and, because they never used to take freshers, they have limited clubs and societies. It’s also an all-girls college and I’d quite like to mix with the opposite gender, socially, which will likely now be difficult.

That said, I’m in quite a lot of group chats already – I hope these virtual meetings lead to in-person ones, even if they have to be socially distant.

I don’t think this year is going to be particularly good value for money, and I’ve seen a lot of petitions going around trying to get the Government to reduce tuition fees.

I don’t know if I agree with that – obviously you still have to pay the lecturers. But it’s clear that you’re not getting the university experience so many thousands of us applied for, let alone being primed for a job market that may be in disrepair by the time we graduate.

Essentially, I’m getting myself into quite a lot of debt to sit in my room with a computer.