When I started my first year at UCL in 2018, I had grand ideas of what the next three years of my life would look like. Like many, I was hopeful; keen to immerse myself in the world of aca- demia, I was looking forward to being surrounded by the bustling London life. Imagine my shock when halfway through my second term of my second yeut when it was all over, and summer came, I thought, ‘at least next year will be better. Next year we’ll be back to normal’. WRONG.
So here I am, in the second term of my final year, and in a third lockdown. I know it is not going to get better soon. This is it. This is my university experi- ence. As a student with a pre-existing mental illness, I am not only having to navigate my studies in the context of COVID-19, but also my ever-wors- ening mental health. The NUS survey revealed that over half of students re- ported a decline in their mental health.
Although I have been able to man- age my illness on my own for over a year, I once again found myself in therapy. Of course, there is no shame in that, but Zoom therapy, like Zoom university, doesn’t quite live up to the real thing. When I tell my therapist that I feel completely alone, isolated, cut off from the world around me, they cannot in turn tell me to get in touch with a friend, go out for a coffee, eet up with someone. We stare at each other through our webcams with a look in our eyes that mutually acknowledges, ‘this is just what life is like now, there’s nothing you can do about it’.
Yet somehow, I am still expected to carry on with my studies and perform to the same standard as before. How? When I finish my dissertation, I will not get to take a nice picture in front of my department with a beautifully- bound copy of the giant essay I poured every ounce of my being into. Instead, I will likely just collapse on my sofa, exhausted and drained. I do not get to have a celebration.
When I finish my exams, I likely will- not be able to go out with my friends to celebrate finishing our degrees, to commemorate the years of hard work we’ve put into our higher education. I will not get to don a cap and gown and take photos with my proud parents outside the Royal Festival Hall. I will not get the catharsis which I have earnt.
Instead, my graduation present will likely be the terrifying question: What next?
Finishing university this year does not just come with anxiety, but also with overwhelming fear. Many do not have any sense of security as to what comes next, where we’ll be going after- wards, what life has in store for us. And we fear, too, that our results will not represent the hard work we’ve donebe- cause it is virtually impossible to per- form to a ‘pre-pandemic’ standard, during a cycle of lockdowns. But we have not been given the reassurance of a safety a safety net, nor have we been promised that we will not be punished for daring to finish our degrees while COVID rages on.
UCL’s new no-detriment policy of lowering grade boundaries by 1.5% is unlikely to benefit the vast majority of students, whose primary concern is get- ting substantially lower grades in their exams than they would have in normal circumstances. 1.5%, is this really all our anxiety is worth?
So I fear, because I have no answers and only questions. I have no security and only uncertainty.