University: The biggest streaming platform of 2020 28/10/20

 It’s impossible to understand how the government don’t see that the reason students are now ‘graduating into a recession’ is that we’re paying outrageously high university fees, with very little payback. This reality has been exacerbated naturally by Covid-19 (don’t worry, I wasn’t going to write an article without mentioning the key word). These fees have not only made further education more exclusive and less accessible, but they've also had a direct effect on career opportunities post-graduation. Not only are we leaving university at least £27000 down, but many students are then shelling out another few thousand for a Masters because at this point, even though we’re absolutely being exploited in the most middle-class way, it actually feels safer to be enveloped in an educational institution than having to face the bleak and formidable prospects of the real world. More specifically, the job market (or lack thereof). 

Whilst this year, due to the pandemic many university students have effectively been conned into paying their rent for an overpriced Netflix subscription, (see @UOMrentstrike on instagram) some would argue that the copious amount of work we’re being set each week kind of makes up for it. (I mean, it's a poor recompense, but after the state of this year we are grasping at straws at this point). Personally I’ve noticed an immense difference between the amount of work set last year (books per week, related articles and optional ‘secondary reading’) and this year. I sort of expected there to be a significant increase because usually second year counts for more towards students’ final degrees, however the sheer quantity of work set each week so far has been stifling. It seems as if the university, aware of actually what a shit deal students have been handed - faced with the option of taking a year out and delaying our studies but being unable to get a job or do anything productive, or alternatively attending university through a screen - have tried to settle their guilty conscience by overcompensating and bombarding students with so much work that we have no time for anything else. 

The workload perhaps wouldn’t seem so incredibly daunting if we had more support from the university for how to manage our time and sort through which parts are actually relevant. At the minute, a lot of the stuff we read we’re not even getting the chance to discuss because the balance between actual contact time (well, seminars over zoom) and reading materials is so radically incongruous. This can be quite frustrating actually because let me tell you, when you’ve had to watch a 3 hour play and read a 400 page book, two reviews of the aforementioned play and two journal entries, all for one module for one week and all listed as required, and then at least half of it isn’t even mentioned, you do begin to enter in a sort of existential crisis. Personally thus far occurring most frequently at 2am, as the blue light seeps into my straining retinas. In terms of resolving this problem, if nothing else, at least the university could give us a ‘Boots’ voucher or something so we can go and get cosmetic help to cover up the grey bags permanently embedded underneath my eyes. 

To put a positive spin on this, given that Manchester is in tier 3 with rumours of moving into tier 4 (although given that its based on a traffic light coding system I’m not quite sure how this works - what comes after red? Rainbow?) there’s not a whole lot for students to do here anyway. Meaning that anxieties around FOMO are much less prominent. Furthermore, a lot of students have so much work to do that they’ve barely spent any time with their house or flat mates. Whilst this isn’t great for social connections and *cough cough* our mental well-being, at least it means you can’t run into any flat tensions. Surely logic dictates that you can’t fall out with people you don’t have time to socialise with, and I don’t see Macbeth or Hamlet starting beef with me from the pages of Shakespeare’s plays. Quite frankly I think those two have probably got enough of their own problems to be getting on with.