Throughout the pandemic, lectures and tutorials have been mostly online, but many students have still chosen to move into halls of residences to make the most of the ‘student experience’.
Isla Grieve, 19, is a second-year accounting student at the University of Strathclyde, and she has mixed feelings about her experience in student halls during the first two years of the pandemic.
Isla, alongside many others, moved into student halls in September 2020, months after the country was plunged into a lockdown. She explained: “It felt really strange moving away from home, especially with everything that was going on with Covid, but it was really nice to get to meet my flatmates and neighbours and start living independently.
“It was my first time living away from home, so it took me a bit of time to get used to it. After a while it started to feel more normal, and it was nice to be able to do my own shopping and choose when I wanted to do things.”
Throughout first year, the social aspect of student halls was slightly different due to all of the Covid restrictions that were in place at the time. Grieve said: “Because of all the different restrictions, we were a bit limited with the things we could do. We weren’t allowed to go out to bars and restaurants or clubs, it felt like we were spending a lot of time in the flat which was really difficult sometimes.
“We weren’t even allowed to travel home from uni so I couldn’t see my friends or family from home unless it was on Zoom or FaceTime. The only time I properly got to leave my flat was when I did my food shopping or went for a walk. Apart from that there wasn’t really anything else we were able to do.”
As the academic year drew to a close, the restrictions were eased a bit more, meaning bars and restaurants began to open up: “It was a shame because it felt like we had been stuck in our flat the whole year, and as soon as it was almost time to leave, everything started to re-open again.”
Because of the rollout of vaccines, the government were able to ease some lockdown restrictions, which meant that life started to feel a bit more normal. She said: “I moved back into halls for my second year of university. I think I chose to do this mainly because it felt like I didn’t get a proper first year experience.
“Second year has definitely been better than first year because there has been less restrictions. It meant that when I moved back to halls after summer, we were able to go out to bars and clubs and meet new people. I’ve also had a couple of in person classes this year, so I’ve been able to meet a couple of friends on my course.”
Isla thinks that overall, her experience in halls has been very unique, and although most of first year was spent in lockdown, second year has been making up for all of the things she missed out on: “Although first year was a bit difficult at times, it was still really nice to be able to live away from home with my flatmates. But now that we’re in second year and most of the Covid restrictions have gone, it has definitely made the experience a lot better than last year.”
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