Features 11
epigram 24.11.2020
A fresher's reflection on a topsy-turvy first term were spent awkwardly in people’s rooms. With few events aside from online ‘Chai and Chat’ sessions, most people slept, ignored the Zoom invites to ‘Harry Potter Watch Parties,’ and waited for the night to commence. Freshers’ Week accordingly First Year, English Literature came and went and work started in earnest. itting the ground as a Most work is currently online Fresher this year has had meaning students work in their its complications. I arrived rooms throughout the day, sitting on a Friday morning to Wills Hall in for hours on end watching lectures Stoke Bishop and was greeted with and seminars. With the added comstony silence in my block. A stagplications of booking a study space gered arrivals week designed to refor a period of time, or potentially duce the numbers of people mixing, being rejected from a café given the meant I was the first person to arrestrictions on numbers, most people rive. work in their rooms or the occasionThat night, with the absence of al accommodation study space. clubs or any opportunity to go out, Blackboard, the site used for most all the new freshers roamed around of the UniverStoke Bishop searching for Many freshers don't know sity’s teaching assignrumours of an where most of the University and ments, works event. Streams of libraries or study spaces are well, aside from small groups, totalling hundreds let alone stepped inside them the occasional technological of people, crossed glitch. In-person seminars this year each other again and again in the mean face masks and visors; this dark. Clusters of drunk figures yelled unfortunate combination impedes to others, ‘Where’s the motive? any easy face-to-face discussion for Where’s the motive?!’ students and lecturers alike. First Most motives were discovered to year students nervous to contribute be disappointingly non-existent. in normal circumstances now have People would tramp up the hill folthe further difficulty of a misty visor. lowing the elusive call of Liquid DnB Self-isolation and quarantine for and find that the LED lights they individual blocks and flats has also were following were actually just affected academic work. At one security flashlights. As soon as this point, most of Wills Hall, and probreality became apparent, a different ably the rest of Stoke Bishop, was in rumour would appear about someisolation. Many missed out on practhing in another hall. tical seminars and in-person discusThe crowd would then move on sion lectures, thus impacting their again and the evening continued learning for that week. In my expeas such. On one night, my group rience, the online tasks or substitutes stopped and saw a large company for these missed lectures or practiof girls walk up and down the same cals are satisfactory but still hill four times in 15 minutes. The not comparanight usually ended in an anticlimactic cluster around the Hiatt Baker bus stop with security ineffectively shouting at any groups larger than six. The daytimes
How did one of the most formative University experiences pan out in the end? Alexander Sampson
Epigram / Lucy O'Neill
H
plete social flexibility of Freshers’ ble to the same content taught, disWeek had fizzled out. cussed, or shown in person. The pandemic has also transThe University provided very large formed the dining rooms of catered food boxes for each individual conhalls, such as Wills and Churchill, taining cooking essentials. However, into communal wastelands. In Wills, for those of us in catered halls, most social dining is non-existent as each of this food was wasted as we have table has a plastic screen down the no hobs and are not permitted any middle and every seat is two metres form of portable stove. apart. All food is served in plastic For my block, the food arrived boxes for either take-away or eattwo days late. On the first night, afin options; most ter several hours take of phone calls, The 10pm curfew has students away and eat in someone from simply meant that pub their rooms, the the Residential trips start much earlier kitchen or the Life Team orcorridor of their dered us seven blocks since these living areas were Domino’s pizzas instead. For the rest not designed for communal eating. of the time, we relied on what we The reality of eating in the dining had left and what our friends bought hall is learning to speak to the perfrom the supermarket. son opposite you through the break Stoke Bishop enjoyed 2 weeks of in the plastic screen in front of you. relative normality before blocks and Everything social about catered halls flats began heading into quarantine. has been axed, including formals Coming out of those two weeks saw and the JCR rooms like the Billiards a drastic change in the atmosRoom in Wills and the Library in phere as the comChurchill. Bizarrely, the staff are very strict about social distancing and hygiene once in the dining hall, yet the queue outside stretches back with neither social distancing nor masks. For Freshers this year, Lakota, Thekla, various bottomless brunches, and an array of pubs have offered something close to ordinary socialising. The rule of six has added some difficulties as pubs fill their capacity very quickly. It is also sometimes difficult to be inclusive when there is a limit on the number of people who can sit together. The 10pm curfew has simply meant that socials and pub trips start much earlier, while getting the bus back to Stoke Bishop at 10pm takes much longer as everyone leaves the Epigram / Molly Pipe pub at the same time. Buses have re-
duced their capacity owing to social distancing, meaning that it is often easier and quicker to just walk across the Downs than wait 20 minutes for the bus in a crowd. Societies have also offered some aspect of normality. Some of the biggest sports clubs - Hockey, Rugby and Mixed Lacrosse – have functioned with regular training and socials and are popular amongst Freshers as a result. Perhaps a key difference this year has been the visibility of smaller societies that were not easy to find during the SU’s Virtual Fresher’s Fair. Stalls were placed in a virtual atrium where similar sports or societies were banded together. For example, one stall held Men and Women’s Rugby, Touch Rugby and American Football in one. There was an option to chat online with a stall holder or find out more information about the society by clicking a series of links. Most of the links given just led to the Society’s SU information page and the chat function was slow. Credit must be given to the SU for maintaining the Freshers’ Fair but the reality was that it was absolutely no substitute for the real thing. Consequently, most people have not had the chance to meet half as many people as they would in a normal year. This is, perhaps, the pandemic’s greatest impact on the Freshers experience. If I had one piece of advice to all Freshers, I would encourage them to be as pro-active and persistent in finding things online as possible. It is so easy to miss information, especially given the amount of time we are spending staring at screens, and yet there are so many opportunities available if you search for them, alongside help, advice and support if required.
