(Image source: Faceless via Adobe Stock).

By Alex Wong, Social Sciences BSc

Starting my university journey in the middle of a global pandemic was not what I had in mind as I touched down (on a mostly empty flight) at Heathrow. I had never felt more out of sync in my life, lugging around my suitcases like a lifeline. The sharp contrast between reality and my ideal university life only served to magnify what I felt was missing from this new chapter – meeting new people, exploring a foreign place, while immersing myself in an academically rigorous program. Instead, the year passed by in a blur of lockdowns, zoom classes and monotony. One thing I did learn is that it is difficult to feel upbeat when the sun sets at 4pm as you’re watching from your window waiting for a takeout.

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Just as businesses are adapting to the remote working environment created by lockdown, so must staff and students at the IOE in order to maintain learning during Covid-19.

On a personal level, this has taken me from my room in Camden Town to the left-hand corner of my mother’s attic (there are birds living in the roof on the other side and I don’t particularly want to befriend them). Yet, even from my “desk” (read: shelf), with its temperamental Wi-Fi, soundtrack of occasional muffled arguments or hooting from the ceiling, and even the carousel of visiting cats – I feel I will have grown as a learner by the time I return to UCL.

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