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“All we want in our lives right now is some clarity”, writes our student Max Witt on finding new ways to organize studies in times of coronavirus. In a longread essay, Student Life Officer Mark Baldwin shares his thoughts on coping with the new reality of an “inside out world”, while our student Keerthi Sridharan reports on the need to stay sane, in spite of all uncertainties and the FocusCo student photo club members display views on the world as they see it from their rooms.

“I’m still in Utrecht, on a semi-abandoned campus, a small group of lonely people trying their absolute hardest to be a little less lonely every day”, Keerthi writes in her campus column in DUB. “Community has been the only constant in all this chaos.”

“But we are alive, and we are thankful. We’re all scared; that isn’t liable to change anytime soon. But we do what we can to keep sane. I show my parents the rabbit-mouse-bat creature I’ve knitted over the weekend. We bake our bread, we water our plants. We sing. After all, we have to follow Brecht’s advice: In the dark times will there also be singing? Yes, there will also be singing. About the dark times.”

Read Keerthi’s DUB column .

Reflections on coping with social distancing

Also our Student Life Officer Mark Baldwin is missing his College Hall office and the face-to-face counselling with students.

“Much though I’m adjusted to the technology, I miss the deeper reality of live human connection with students and colleagues greatly, and also realise I should tidy the house”, he writes.

“My own reality of this era is probably different from the next person’s reality, and the next, so while hovering above the situation for a reflective overview, I realise generalisations simply won’t work. I therefore write from personal perspectives that not everybody will identify with, though some might.”

Read Mark’s thoughtful longread essay on coping with the unexpected situation we all have to face at the moment: "Reflections on an Inside Out World".

Planning in Corona Times

The coronavirus measures bring new uncertainties for students also in keeping their studies organized. Our second-year student Max Witt writes about the need to find new strategies:

“With new government regulations and restrictions being put in place, and changes in syllabi popping up like mushrooms nearly every day, planning has become hard. I hardly know anyone who dares to make plans for the summer, not even for the next week. But basically, everyone who knows me knows that I am a planner freak. I am one of those weird people who can literally spend hours in stationary shops, and actually sits down to make lists, schedules, bullet journals and twenty thousand to-do lists for every single task.

Why, you may ask. It makes sure that I stay grounded and in control of the things that I need to do, so I have time to do the things that I want to do (most of which are unfortunately cancelled now). Smarty pants like you have probably noted that I like structure. So, what do I do when all structures collapse, because I now only have four live lectures a week, instead of eight; because I suddenly have to navigate eight different platforms for my uni work; because I am stuck somewhere, away from home?

You guessed it: I sat down and made lists, schedules, etc. This time I went through a tornado of emotions during this process: anything from ‘oh, it’s not as bad as I thought’, over panicking about being utterly lost, to ultimately, a tired but satisfied smile as I changed my pyjama and went to bed at 2 AM (no, I did not change into my pyjama, I changed the pyjama; who wears normal clothes nowadays?!). Also, as you know, in these times 3AM is the new 12AM, anyway.

Finally, the outcome is of what you can see me still working on in the photo: I decided to digitalise my planning and have stopped using my bullet journal for now. I must say that it was not an easy decision to give up analogue planning, but I am already sitting on my laptop ten hours a day…So now I have all my planning on there, too. I personally can recommend a combination of MS To-Do, OneNote, and a good calendar app (which I am yet to find). Simplifying my life. Figuring out new routines. Step, by step.

After all, all we want in our lives right now is some clarity.”

A view from my room

FocusCo, our campus-own students' photo club, assigned their members to submit a picture of the view from the room they are in now - on campus or elsewhere. This is a selection of the contributions. (Click on the photos for a larger image.)