Fresher Take

Coming to Uni in a COVID-19 Environment

October 07, 2021 UoL Student Life Season 3 Episode 1
Fresher Take
Coming to Uni in a COVID-19 Environment
Show Notes Transcript

University during COVID-19 could be a confusing time, but Alex & Tori are here to break down the guidelines here at the University of Lincoln.

ALEX: Hello, welcome to the Fresher Take Podcast, I'm Alex.  

TORI: And I'm Tori. 

ALEX: And today we're going to be outlining the topic of coming to University in a COVID-19 environment, and basically what we're going to be talking about in this episode is the nature of feeling anxiety during COVID-19 and how this will undoubtedly be heightened for many students returning to University, but especially those of you who will be coming to university for the first time. This podcast is intended to ease any anxiety students may be feeling by explaining the University's COVID protocols, support systems as well as sharing advice to help combat your anxiety as a whole, and now Tori is going to go on to talk about anxiety in general, take it away Tori! 

TORI: So one thing that we need to remember about anxiety is that it's completely natural to feel it at some point in our lives. Everyone experiences it at some point, some may experience it more than others, but y'know there's always something that can be done to help ease anxiety, and when you move off to University, having to move away is obviously one of the most daunting feelings that you can feel. It's the first time you're away from home, for most students. You have to undertake new structures of studies, which are already overwhelming, and it's something we really understand entirely because y'know three, four years into our studies now, but with the pandemic environment on top of it, there's an extra pressure. So without a doubt everyone will be feeling stressed about the situation and you're not alone in how you're feeling. We're here to show you how you can alleviate your anxiety and reveal how much support there is for you and every other student out there at the University of Lincoln. So now Alex is going to talk about the University's preventative measures against COVID. 

ALEX: Thanks, and when it comes to preventative measures there are a lot, like, just researching this stuff eased my anxiety quite a bit, so here we go. So when it comes to safety on campus the University is being incredibly considerate of the climate that we are still in and are prioritizing safety. If you go to www.lincoln.ac.uk/home/coronavirus then it will give you all the information you need, but I am going to give you a short summary here. So the university are strongly encouraging vaccination if you are able and continued twice weekly asymptomatic testing, the hands-face-space routine, maintaining the University test and trace system, requested use of PPE, and a mask or visor wearing if you are able, for students and staff. There is also still many sanitizer stations across campus for your use. In terms of the teaching environment, use of online attendance registers will be in effect, and teaching methods will vary from course to course so to find out more you should talk to your tutors about their intended approaches because, y'know every course will be different and they will make different decisions based on how they want to teach you, y'know, whether online, in person blended y'know it'll be down to them.  

Testing is obviously still taking place, and will continue for the foreseeable future, and it will be taking place on campus in Village Hall. There are two options, you can either have a supervised test or the individual can collect a box of 7 home tests. Prior to returning to the University, students have been asked to undertake 2 COVID tests and if they are negative then they should continue to test twice weekly, each test being done 3 to 4 days apart ideally, to ensure that they are identified as asymptomatic if they test positive. Should any student, or indeed member of staff, have symptoms or have been in contact with someone who has tested positive they must not use the University testing site but instead request a PCR test by dialling 119 or going onto the NHS website. There is also a portal page for students and staff to use that has more information and you can find this by going to testandtrace.blogs.lincoln.ac.uk. And now I'm going to hand over back to Tori who's going to explain the services of Student Life and Student Wellbeing. 

TORI: So at our University we obviously have a lot of people and networks put in place to support students while they're, y'know, not just during term but also over the summer and just while they're as a student at University, so if you were to go to the website studentservices.lincoln.ac.uk. it goes into full detail about everything that is offered by the Student Wellbeing centre as well as student support regarding life at uni, health and wellbeing, academic support, respect, and also misconduct and harassment support. You can contact them directly through a form on the website with any specific inquiry you may have. And regarding Student Life, the website studentlife.lincoln.ac.uk gives you all the information you might need for living your life as a student, with information on starting, studying, leaving- living sorry, leaving uni, along with up-to-date news about events and COVID-19. So there are loads of information out there that you can go to if you're feeling uncertain about anything whether that's COVID related or just any feelings of uncertainty that you're feeling at University or if you just need advice. It's written by a lot of students as well so, y'know they're going through similar experiences that you are too. Recent articles on the site include "Preparing for University" by Sonali Dabba and "Best of: What to bring to Uni and What to Leave Behind" by Jessica Louise.  

You can also find Student Life on all of our social medias with the username @UoLStudentLife, as well as the student life app which you can download from your app store. Make sure that you search "Uni of Lincoln Student Life", and you'll be able to find it there and it'll keep you up to date with relevant student information, as well as giving you activities that can help you with your personal wellbeing. Now Alex is going to talk about the measures that can help you combat your personal anxiety that you may be feeling while you're at University.  

ALEX: Thank you, and just as a little disclaimer before I go through these, obviously everyone experiences anxiety differently, and y'know we've compiled this selection of suggestions to try and give as many broad choices as possible, because of course one thing might work for one person but of course might not work for another person, so we've tried to create a list of things that could hopefully cater to the widest amount of people possible. So, first of all we think it would be useful if you're feeling anxious to try and have a think of what specifically it is that is causing you to feel anxious, and if you're able to identify these causes then writing everything down in a finite list so that it's out of your head, and something tangible, can be quite helpful. Because this way, it will make it a lot easier for you to tackle each source rather than having everything inside your head as an overwhelming mass of problems. And then also physically you can go down that list, address each thing one at a time, and honestly crossing each thing off your list can be very therapeutic. Even at the end like, if you've done it on a piece of paper you can safely, have to disclaim safely, burn the piece of paper, that can also be very therapeutic. 

An example of something that you may be anxious about is, especially if you're coming to uni for the first time, is loneliness because perhaps, y'know when you're in first year for instance, generally most people coming to uni from elsewhere will be put into student accommodation with people they do not know. And maybe you and your roommates don't have a lot in common, which is very common and, y'know, happens all the time. So if that is the case then you can plan to join a society! Because then you can be sure that the people you will be hanging around with will have at least one thing in common with you. So whether it be an activity society, something political, or something funny or nerdy like Harry Potter Society, Terrible Film Society, or the Amateur Cooking and Baking Society which I believe are new this year. There's a society for everyone, all of which you can explore on the 5th of October during Fresher's Week, which is when the Societies Fayre is set to be.  

Another example might be that you're worried about something academic, about the potential workload that - now that you have seen your reading lists, and you're worried about the magnitude of everything that you're going to be doing. With this, we suggest just emailing your professors, or indeed your program leader or personal tutor, whose contact details you can find on the Staff Directory via Blackboard, and I know they will all be more than happy to give you advice about managing your new workload, and about anything really, like, I'm speaking from experience, I'm entering my Masters year and the rate at which my professors are there for me, whenever I need them for anything is just - it's the best, and I can assure you that they will always want to help you with any problem that you may have.  

However, moving away from specific things that cause anxiety, often anxieties can have no specific identifiable cause. Sometimes we are just anxious, and there's no reason for it, and that is perfectly okay too. And this is where well-being strategies come in, techniques that are there to just help you clear your mind in general. And these mainly involve a change in routine, and it can be even the smallest thing. So, anxiety really can make us stagnant, y'know make us stay in the same room, eat the same food, and generally become unmotivated to do things because our anxiety stops us. And a small change in that routine can make all the difference.  

It can be as simple as just leaving your house and sitting on a bench a minute away if you don't feel up to a full walk. Do a few dishes, or even just one if all of them feel like too much. Doing one little thing, can be the first really important step to helping yourself feel better. And also, knowing your boundaries and not being afraid to speak your mind if you're not comfortable with something is incredibly important. This can honestly apply to anything from not wanting to go out to places where there are going to be lots of people, to even y'know, still wearing your mask in shops even though it's not the law, y'know it's just really a case of standing up for what you know is your comfort zone and sticking to that, because that is seriously a strong method of self-care. Now we're going to go into an activity, between the two of us hosts, that Tori is going to start with. 

TORI: So we're going to give each other a hypothetical situation, something that would cause us to feel anxiety, particularly within a COVID related situation, and we're just going to describe the steps that we would take that is going to just decrease our anxiety if we were in that situation. So Alex my my hypothetical situation for you is: what would you do if you found out, you were contacted by the University, saying that a member in your class had tested positive for coronavirus and y'know they told you to self-isolate. Obviously that's quite y'know, knowing that you've been in contact with someone that is positive. your initial reaction is to feel anxious about it. How would you deal with that anxiety of knowing that you were in the same room as someone that had COVID?  

ALEX: Yeah, I mean that would make me feel really seriously anxious because, like personally I, not knowingly, I've not actually been in contact with anyone who's had COVID. I did have a, I'm gonna go into a little anecdote first, I did have a situation last year, that I had two roommates and one of my roommates got a message from someone he'd been hanging out with who'd said 'Oh I've tested positive for COVID you need to get tested' - so me and my two roommates had to isolate and test ourselves and we were literally just staying in our own rooms, to make sure in case we did have, it we didn't pass it to each other just in case. We all ended up, we were very lucky, we all ended up testing negative we were completely fine, but y'know that was an incredibly anxious time, but what got us through that and what I think decreased all of our anxieties was the fact that we had each other, even though we were physically distanced in the house, we were communicating with each other constantly, y'know we made little jokes about things like we would text each other whenever one of us was going to go downstairs and, like, use the bathroom like as a warning sign sort of thing, and like we tried to make light of the situation, so I feel like - what I would do if I'd found out that it happened in the academic way, I would obviously take every precaution to self-isolate, get a PCR test for myself, isolate in my room, if I have any roommates that I'm currently living with i would let them know so that they know to distance from me and also get themselves tested. And if I know I'd been in contact with anyone else, like physically, like for example if I know the the person who tested positive for COVID was in my class on a Wednesday and it was now Friday, like anyone I had been in contact with on the Wednesday, the Thursday, and the Friday I would immediately contact to, y'know, just out of common sense to let them know to also get tested and keep safe because - I know like, when you're anxious, it can be difficult to have that kind of forethought, but it can be really important like, not only for other people but it can be a weight off your shoulders to know that you've tried to minimize the potential damage elsewhere.  

And I would basically try and make sure I've got comforts at the ready for myself while I'm waiting for a test result so, make sure I've got all my Netflix sorted, make sure I've got some comfort foods, maybe if I've got a friend who's living elsewhere I might message them and ask them to buy me some food and like, drop it outside my flat door for me, y'know safely, and then obviously pay them for it and stuff, just to make sure that I have the things around me that, if I am forced to self-isolate I have the inside things that will keep me calm basically and that's what I'd do in that situation. Uh, I'm just gonna rehydrate for a moment. 

TORI: Yeah, you definitely need all of your comforts when you're anxious like that's one thing, like even I find that just you know like you said making sure you have Netflix ready to go, binging - even if you're having to re-watch one of your favorite TV series like, that's one of the best things you can do, personally for me as well, so if you're trying to like distract yourself. Absolutely.  

ALEX: Yep. 

TORI: Pull up your favorite TV series and re-watch that right from the beginning. 

ALEX: In terms of my situation for you, imagine that, so you're in a flat for instance and you've got roommates, and y'know we're in a COVID environment, but y'know restrictions have been lifted, people are going out, people are going to clubs to pubs, and your roommates are y'know getting ready to go out there, going to a club, and you know they're going to a club, and they keep saying to you that you should come with them. And they are, y'know, insistent that y'know - maybe you haven't been out, at all, even since the restrictions have lifted because you're wanting to keep yourself safe, but they are you know haranguing you and in fact peer pressuring you to come out with them. What would your response be to that? 

 

TORI: Personally, I mean, I am not the kind of person that says no easily, if someone wants to go and do something or they need something I find it really difficult to say no because I feel guilt and I feel like I'm gonna let someone down. But if that was something I felt really uncomfortable about, y'know going out, especially into a club where you're kind of gonna be in very, very close distance with loads of other people, my biggest thing would be to actually just walk away, and I know that sounds, I don't know maybe everyone's thinking back to when they're younger and their parents would say 'Oh you know walk away from the bullies just walk away', but it's actually something that I've learned growing up, like anything, if there was an argument or if there was something that made me upset, something that made me anxious, I walk away because I don't want to, y'know, reveal all my emotions, whether that's crying whether that's having a panic attack or anything like that. I walk away from it and if I were in a flat then obviously I would have my own room so I would just walk into my room and maybe just stay in there for a little bit, and if they kept continuing to peer pressure then I would just have to say no, I have something else I need to do tonight, because at the end of the day your health is what matters and if you don't feel comfortable going out in a COVID environment or your anxiety's, y'know, that's making you even more anxious and you know that your anxiety would then kind of be overwhelming when you went out, then you kind of have to make sure that you put yourself first, you always make sure that you put yourself first and yeah it's not worth it's not worth going out and having a panic attack in a club and having to, y'know, try and get yourself home and things, so I think it's important to think, I would think of the things that's going to cause me stress in the next half an hour/hour if I went out, so yeah just having to walk away from these people and tell them no, and even if you have to say something, that you've got to work on something for University, or maybe you you want to make a call back home because, that person is making you feel y'know a bit anxious about having to go out and do something so you can say that you need to phone one of your friends back home or something like that just to get yourself out of that situation and, then perhaps at a later date I would then take that person aside or several people aside if it was more than one person and say - 'Look I really didn't appreciate that and, I'm going to explain to you why I was a bit uncomfortable about going out', and then try and make them understand a bit more, because obviously if someone's wanting to go out then they probably were just thinking about that in the moment, that's all they were really concerned about, having you there with them on that night out, whereas if a couple days later you guys are sat having breakfast at the dinner table - I just said breakfast at the dinner table, you know what I mean - um, then, yeah they're more likely to understand because they're not just thinking about 'Okay let's go out let's go out', and then hopefully that would maybe resolve the situation from happening again if, y'know, if you said no to going out and they kind of would maybe understand a bit more. So yeah that's what I would do in that situation. 

ALEX: Yeah I, I think that's great and especially because, y'know especially now, y'know it's the fact that the opportunity is there for people to go out that it's it's even more intense, y'know people feel they need - certain people feel like they need to go out now because they don't know how long potentially the opportunity will last, so it it makes sense that people may in fact be more pressuring, but y'know you saying, y'know, just walking away from the situation sticking to your guns and then addressing it later I think is great because a lot of people I feel like, don't address it and don't try to make the other person acknowledge that 'Hey, you've made me anxious and I need to explain to you, why I felt this way', because then it helps the other the other person to learn hopefully not to y'know address you or pressure you like that again because y'know, it's easy it's easy to just leave it, and not talk about it, but I think bringing it up with them afterwards is a very good move. 

TORI: And I think that, even having that conversation can be quite a difficult thing, especially if you're an anxious person, some people don't have, y'know, the confidence to say to someone, 'Look this is how it made me feel', so y'know that might have to be a whole other different podcast topic but, yeah, having that conversation with someone can sometimes be really difficult, which I mean I know from my own experience, I still struggle with speaking to people, but it definitely, y'know, it nips it in the bud if you catch it early. I love using that phrase - yeah, y'know if you manage to do it quite quickly then hopefully it just wouldn't happen again, and they would understand and respect that you just you just don't want to do that.  

ALEX: Yeah, yeah I think that's - that's definitely good to y'know keep that conversation open. 

TORI: Well, thank you for listening to our Fresher Take Podcast, I've been Tori. 

ALEX: And I've been Alex.  

TORI: And make sure you tune in next time when we talk about academic assessments and the stresses that it will cause, hopefully not cause, but you know it might. Make sure to check out our socials at UoLStudentLife for our digital content on how to support you at university, like I said before it's written by other students as well, you can get any advice on anything that you may be feeling unsure about. Thank you for joining us and we will see you next time.