Campus life: Will it ever be the same again?
Two-thirds of a group of students recently polled on returning to contact sessions on the campus of North-West University (NWU) indicated that they would like to return to campus.
A total of 87 students participated in a small poll and the results showed that 57 students wanted face-to-face sessions to resume while 30 students indicated that they are not keen on returning to contact sessions yet.
Andre Gouws, a lecturer in the School of Communication, conducted the informal poll among second-year communication students.
He shared the results with his students, which showed that several students are still scared to return to campus, or are unable to do so.
He indicated that it is very difficult to predict when students will be able to return to campus, as the virus is unpredictable and the most probable scenario is that the university will move to a hybrid system – with contact classes (maybe in smaller groups) and some online classes.
“Contact classes are important because of the interaction with peers and lectures, and this is still something that we miss.
“ On the other hand, some students also got the opportunity to take up part-time jobs; study at home etc., so remote learning was a positive event for other students. The restrictions helped some students while many others missed campus life and contact classes”, said Gouws.
Although it is a small sample of students in one school who was surveyed, does give a hint as to how students feel about online remote learning compared to contact classes.
Students cited various reasons, including financial issues and fear of the coronavirus, which can easily spread in contact class settings, as factors that are deterring them from returning to campus.
Rethabile Segoe, a third-year social work student, indicated that a full return would simply not be possible.
“I don’t think we will return to our normal lives anytime soon. Some of us still have a phobia for vaccines, and we are not willing to take any.”
Segoe pointed out that online learning is easy until it is time to write tests and exams and said that students do not study for their tests and exams, but expect to pass.
“I enjoyed contact classes more than online classes. Now we do not study, we just copy and paste, honestly. We don’t really know what we have done since March of 2020, but we will be future professionals.” Segoe said.
On the other hand, Oratile Matlhare, a third-year BA Law student hopes that students will resume their usual student lives.
“At some point we are going to have to learn how to live with the virus,” she said.
“The quality of education and knowledge have altered with the dramatic transition to remote learning.”
She continued by saying online learning makes students lazy and that their studies feel like an option.
“Students just ‘cram’ information instead of actively practising what was learnt just to complete and pass their quizzes and many students want to feel the sensation of being in a lecture hall again. They are exhausted from sitting in front of computers all day where they fall asleep,” Matlhare added.
In an email response from Louis Jacobs, the spokesperson of North-West University, about the return to campus in 2022, he said nobody can predict what the national situation will look like at the beginning of 2022.
According to him, lockdown had a massive impact on everybody’s lives in terms of freedom of movement.
“We are however made aware of events being attended by students, where all regulations are being ignored, this is surely not assisting us in getting to a better place,” said Jacobs. – Wayden Michaels, Steve Maphakathe, Innocentia Motshoari, Tsholofelo Dingopo
Agreed that the online learning environment is not the best option for academic success as many students merely look at the work in the event of tests or assignments. It feels as if lecturers do not provide the same quality of education within the climate, trying to cram as many possible assignments to ensure that students are forced to look at the work. This results in unnecessary stress and has implications on the mental health and well being of the student. This method is not necessarily a solution to the problem seeing how experts say we’re going to be faced with this method of education for the foreseeable future.