Starting the first year of my undergraduate geography degree, I knew to expect a large jump from sixth form to university; different paces of working, different methods of study and a new way of socialising too. The change was indeed huge, however rather than being the typical university experience, the chasm of difference was caused by the Covid-19 pandemic
The transition to online study has been a challenge for most. For me as a first year, it meant not just having to cope with the expected workload increase that university would bring but also a new way of working within a digital framework through Canvas and Microsoft Teams. Further, this came at the end of a six month long academic hiatus beginning in late March 2020 due to the cancellation of my A Level examinations.
I chose to live at home for the year and quickly found myself sucked into a loop, sleeping in my bed, studying at my desk just at the end of my bed, before rolling back into bed at the end of the day. This created a struggle with my mental health that was just amplified by the fact that I had spent six months before the start of the semester in the same room, trying to feign productivity after a prompt end to my high school experience. Additionally, with every tutorial discussion done at my desk with my bed in my public background, I felt the blurring of lines between what was my personal, private space at home (Allan and Crow, 1989), and what was on display for public observation which started to impact how I worked. I was starting to feel guilty for taking personal time, even in a place so personal and private that a bedroom is (Reinders, 2008) and I began to feel constricted in my own space. Everywhere within my private home life was in the public sphere of influence, always forcing me to stay productive. To combat this, I figured I would need a way to separate my own home space to where I could publicly work, privately study, and privately unwind. With the pandemic still in full force at time of writing, my access to more public, study areas such as the McClay library were limited. So, I moved my public activities to more public areas of my house; doing tutorials on Microsoft Teams at the kitchen table or online field trips on the coffee table in the living room which would usually be the most publicly receptive room in my house. This helped me separate in my head where it was acceptable to relax or study as I didn’t feel as if the personal space of my bedroom was being encroached upon. It gave me space; letting me unblur the boundaries of what was my own private space and what was available to be seen publicly in my home again.
Ultimately, the prospect of being able to change where I work and what I am working on is a privilege. In the UK, 7% of households in 2019 had no access to the internet (ONS, 2019) and OFCOM estimates that from early 2020, between 1.14 million to 1.78 million children still do not have access to a laptop, desktop, or tablet to complete online schoolwork on (Baker et al., 2020). Thus, despite how unideal the situation may be that I have yet to break my fieldwork boots out of the cupboard or that I haven’t had an opportunity to have even a slight attempt of a normal university social experience, the prospect of working from home with a stable internet connection and a choice of places to study peacefully within my house with whatever internet connected device I have, is a privilege which must not be taken for granted as the digital divide widens educational inequalities in the UK. Doing tutorials at the kitchen table is an opportunity that not all have and for one, I am learning to be increasingly grateful for it.
Allan, G. and Crow, G. (1989) Home and Family: creating the domestic sphere. Basingstoke: Palgrave.
Baker, C. et al. (2020) Covid 19 and the Digital Divide. [on-line]. London: The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology. Available at: https://post.parliament.uk/covid-19-and-the-digital-divide/. Accessed 24/01/21.
Office of National Statistics (2019) Internet access- households and individuals, Great Britain: 2019, [on-line]. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/householdcharacteristics/homeinternetandsocialmediausage/bulletins/internetaccesshouseholdsandindividuals/2019. Accessed 23/01/21.
Reinders, L. and Van Der Land, M. (2008) Mental Geographies of Home and Place: Introduction to the Special Issue, Housing, Theory and Society, [on-line], 25 (1):1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/14036090601150998. Accessed 30/01/21.
