The Quarantine Guide to… More Online Learning? Really?

Well, what do you know? We’re still online and will be until April!* This is certainly a bit shocking given the promises of not wholly online learning but that’s just another one of life’s precious quirks.

There are ways to make the latest semester a bit more exciting and give your bedroom that extra class it was missing.

One of the highlights for on-campus learning for me was being a few minutes late and having a room full of eyes scowling at me. This is something that is easy to recreate and will put you straight back into the awkward mindset that organisation is important and the 15 minute run between lectures just isn’t enough. Using an artistic medium of your own choice, create as many pairs of eyes that are reflective of the popularity of your course. Full walls of eyeballs for engineers, two other isolated pairs for the sucker who picks English translation studies. Add personality to your new peers: are they intoxicated? Disassociated? A bit too keen? No matter how they appear, they will always stare and that is the lesson that we have learnt today.

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Are you one who gets influenced by periods of unproductivity? Did you spend last semester working from bed? That’s not very classy! Most classroom chairs are horrifically hard and uncomfortable, and seem to be capable of both numbing and freezing buttocks. The problem with learning from home is that everything is just a bit too comfortable, très problème. Plus, what is more exciting than getting your own wooden bench? Spoiler alert! This is the perfect opportunity to impress the memories of judgemental 11-year-old’s while also getting back into the swing of real-life education. Take a trip down memory lane and the online IKEA catalogue, fixating on the most grossly uncomfortable and long bench as possible. This is real-life. This is learning.

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The biggest problem that students have been facing recently is just the fabulous increase of stress, onto what are already very stress-inducing years. A way to reduce stress, especially during online learning where it is difficult to walk that line between too much and just enough, is to ensure you take sufficient breaks. Step away from your computer and your desk, walk to the kitchen, make yourself something to eat. Eat it. Make some more. Eat that too. What are you doing now? Why are you going back upstairs? Back to the kitchen for you, missy. It’s snacktime. Enjoy more snacks. Are you having a nice break? Isn’t this calming? Don’t you feel great? Wow, it was a lot of effort to make poached eggs. Maybe you should have a break.

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That being said, we wish you all the best of luck for all online learning endeavours. And if you have any more failsafe techniques for someone who may stare longingly at the future**, please email them to pause@wessexscene.co.uk.

*Or not.

**The only future I long for is one with camera-less seminars.