Most, if not all faculties have requested our return back to campus in the second semester for the face-to-face teaching we have lacked over the past two years. Whilst others rejoice over the opportunity to return to normality, for some the decision is not entirely suitable and comes with a few challenges.
Throughout the pandemic, students have faced multiple challenges and decisions: stay in Amsterdam or return home? Give up your housing? Keep your job in Amsterdam or take a job at home? It is safe to say that by the summer of 2020 we were a widely displaced cohort, but now we have been called back to the city and back to campus. But what about those who had already adapted to a new norm?
Political Science student Danielle Maxwell-Fraser who has her family home in The Hague, explained that living in Amsterdam no longer became viable and that it wasn’t the best option for her because of the high cost. On top of this, with restrictions, the city hasn’t exactly been a student’s dream. This is what left her feeling as though the expense really isn’t worthwhile to ‘live in Amsterdam but not experience it.’
Similarly, political science student Matvei Fokin elaborated on the benefits of being away from Amsterdam. Having spent only one-third of his bachelor’s actually in the city, he has rather enjoyed the opportunity to spend more time with [his] family. Despite this, Matvei felt as though there were many drawbacks to online learning that outweigh the benefits of being at home, confessing that ‘the quality of education deteriorated online.’ It is this simple fact that led him to support the decision to return to campus life, despite the ‘obvious obstacles.’
It is clear that each of us have had different experiences through the pandemic. For some stability has been a real issue. The constant changes have led some people like Danielle to believe that the mandatory face-to-face education lacks compassion as the rules are so ‘reactionary and static’, it leaves students ‘little time to process change.’
Given the ever-changing situation as well as both the financial burdens and housing stress of relocating your entire life back to Amsterdam when you may not have been in the city since Spring 2020, it seems unreasonable for UvA to demand us back to campus. For those of us with one semester until graduation, it can be frustrating to deal with all the housing and bureaucratic joys of Amsterdam for only five months. It isn’t like we are lacking the infrastructure to facilitate an online option; it has become common practice to see tripods with zoom cameras in our seminars and we are more than accustomed to the zoom life. I won’t pretend it is perfect and without its issues, but technical glitches and frozen screens seem like a small price to pay to prevent more stress and anxiety for students who have already lived through enough. UvA should be offering a fully online program for those who want it, particularly for students with only a little while left at the university.