STEM Stories

“It’s so good to be back to normal”, “ I’m glad were back to in person”, ”isn’t it wonderful to be back face to face?”. These are all things I have heard my lecturers say over the last semester, but truthfully it isn’t wonderful to be back in person because there is no back for us. I’ve never done in person University before, I’ve never sat in lecture theatres with 200+ people in them, and I’ve never had to think about in person University exams. 

I was always told University is so different from high school and to try and prepare for this, but what I was never is told that as soon as you feel like you’re finding your feet, it will be turned on its head and you will have to readjust all over again. Obviously, this couldn’t be helped but it doesn’t make it any less daunting. This coupled with the fact that our lecturers are “over the moon” to be back to what they deem as normal has made this semester feel like first year all over again, but just much harder. 

I was sitting in a class a few weeks ago as our lecturer realised that we had never sat a proper University exam before. The shock on his face when this clicked for him really made me realise that while our whole University careers thus far have been strange and new, it is only a minor blip in most lecturers 10+ year careers. Although it felt like I was the only one panicked over this new change I slowly realised that almost everyone in my year and the year above was feeling the exact same way and really it was the lecturers that were the odd ones out.