My dad gave me a few dimes each week. For a whole semester, I didn’t buy any romantic novels. I didn’t eat snacks. I didn’t spend them on shuttlecocks like all the other kids. At the very last day, I spent them all. I remember that was 2 cents. Big number at that time. For me. Do you know what I got? I subscribed a whole year of Mathematics Newspaper.
All teaching has moved to digital formats and while I appreciate the effort from the staff, digital teaching is sloppy and insufficient for a visual degree. Like many art schools, our degree show has been cancelled, along with several competitions and residency opportunities, and our graduation is postponed. NUA is “looking into” a digital degree show but with the high prices students pay they feel entitled to a physical degree show. With the cancellation of nearly every aspect of my future university education, I am pushed further and further into the role of unhappy customer; a role I never wanted to take. Although we weren’t affected by the UK teaching strikes (though I know many who were), with a month off at Christmas, 3 weeks off in April, and an international pandemic halting normal life as well as education, my “University” experience this year is disappointing to say the least. It feels like I’ve been running a marathon and at mile 25 I’ve been told, “Don’t worry, that will do, you can stop now”.
I feel like I have been robbed of my first-year college experience. I was just getting into the college groove. The cost of school is a struggle and now I have enormous student loans for basically hanging out at home and randomly checking into my “classes” for a pass/fail grade: Not at all what I signed up for or agreed to pay thousands of dollars for.
I am a student at Washington State University and I am hating life right now. To get by I am writing in a journal and talking to my friend who lives in France. I am also online shopping like crazy and running out of money. I just love the feeling of getting gifts at my door though. It’s unhealthy. But I am trying to get by in my classes and I am dropping two of our four and taking pass/fail on the two I’m staying in just to maintain a decent GPA. I am still going to fail my finance class and that’s rough to know. This is getting to be too much and I want so desperately for things to go back to normal.
