Blog

Katy tells us about studying from home

Posted 26th January 2021
by Katy

Moving from college to university was been a great challenge, full of thrilling and keen anticipation for the decision that will enormously affect my career, and therefore life. At the beginning, I was excited, nervous and I developed a sense of uneasiness because I was at a point of stepping into a new chapter in my life cycle. I was so looking forward and delighted to make new connections with students and extremely impatient to meet the academic staff of university. However, since I started university I could not have not noticed how coronavirus affected my student life. I was very worried how this pandemic together with my financial situation will affect my development, progression, learning and employability during and after university.
Studying from home with a low income became more challenging because there was a need for many new facilities and materials. Being part of a numerous family made it quite difficult to provide for each individual member the IT kit necessary to be able to follow the course stream. Additionally, the noise is always a major issue that rises during the lectures; the lack of tranquility usually leads to lack of concentration.
However, being funded by JVenn Foundation Bursary helped me financially to supply myself with the necessary IT kit. My Biomedical Science programme had been completely moved online: into asynchronous and synchronous lectures. Usually the mentors advise us to watch the asynchronous videos and to take notes before attending to the online lecture. The greatest advantage of learning from home, during Covid-19 situation, is that the recordings of both synchronous and asynchronous lectures are available at any time. These gave me flexibility and freedom to complete my assignments at any time, benefiting from the information provided. I can manage my time to recap and test my knowledge at any time of the day. Recordings are the ideal guide for revision techniques as it has the target objectives easily disclosed and explained. These gave me the opportunity to self-coordinate my time, plan and track my deadlines.
Additionally, I benefit from all accessible reading books and articles which handle the much needed information. Many of these resources are available through institution login and provides me with the knowledge the course requires. However, during completing my assignments, I have come across many interesting articles and journals that required a membership or single purchase in order to access them, and many of these were available at the university library which has been closed for a period of time.
The assessments consist in assignments or online MCQ exams. The staff understands the difficulties that may occur during the MCQ exams therefore they gave us practice MCQ’s to better prepare for more successful results. However, the complication can take place at any time. For example on 21/01/2021 I experienced an IT problem during the timed MCQ exam for Microbiology and Immunology course. My laptop screen blocked during the exam so I had to restart my laptop. I was alarmed for a second because my time was running. However the IT problem was fixed when I restarted the laptop so I continued the quiz. This has affected my concentration and I had to struggle a bit to complete the quiz on time.
Nevertheless, this blended approach of learning is not as exciting as being in a classroom, and it does not improve my dexterity in a laboratory. Moreover the communication, cooperation and team-work are neglected as students do not quite have the chance to share their visions and perceptions. This has also limited the students’ ability to interact with the others while lectures, as the microphone need to stay on mute due to background noise. The students can also get easily distracted by the surroundings as many of us live with other people, in my case my family. However, the blended approach of learning still assesses my knowledge, writing and presentation skills; therefore the information is still acquainted.
As well as that, in the morning times, I tend to fall asleep; beside that it can be really hard to stay long periods of time in front of the computer. After a busy schedule, my eyes get tired and I sometimes even have a headache. Due to this, Every so often, I feel like I need some time to exercise and to be out of the virtual world. Yet, I save the time and money I would have put in traveling to the university, as well as the cost of meals and other similar things.
I felt like I need to show my appreciation to the much needed help Jvenn Associated provided me with by giving the bursary. It has helped me with the cost to set up a little ‘’private university’’ in the comfort of my own house. This provided with the IT kit necessary and with the stationary products to help me achieve the best abilities for development, progression, learning and employability during and after university. Apart from the IT kit and the stationary products, I also bought a flexible chair which helps my posture to be kept straight while learning, helping my physical wellbeing and my concentrations. All the items purchased with the aid of this bursary, allowed me to build a great place and healthy environment for studying.
I am so grateful for your help. It was a challenging time but you made it easier.

View all blog posts