Depending on how your contact hours are timetabled and, of course, on how long the Pensions Strike lasts, this week might have been your last lecture and seminar for at least some of your modules for over a month. While there is no way to escape how incredibly disruptive this is for students, here are our top tips on keeping up with work.
1) Don’t leave London
It might seem tempting to book a last minute holiday while the prices are cheap because schools are all still in session, or maybe to go back home for a month to visit your family, but this isn’t vacation time. The strike could be called off at any time, and lectures and seminars could resume with a day’s notice. Being half way across the country isn’t the best way to start trying to catch back up on whatever might have already been missed!
3) Do the reading
“But what for?”, I hear you ask. Granted we might never be lectured on the material, but departments haven’t yet decided on how the strike will affect assessments so there’s a very real chance you could be asked question on material you never actually covered. It’s not ideal and it’s not certain to happen, but if it does it’s better not to get caught out. So, do the reading as you usually would and consider looking for criticisms or essays online that will help further your opinions on the text, in lieu of a lecture.
3) Email your lecturers
If you have questions about the reading or about any assessments, send an email over to lecturers or seminar leaders. They won’t be answering them on strike days but hopefully will be able to get around to fielding questions about the material on the days that they are working.
4) Go to office hours
Much like answering emails, lecturers won’t be holding office hours on strike days. However if your lecturer has office hours later in the week that aren’t affected, go along and take your questions. Some lecturers may also reschedule office hours if theirs occur in the start of the week, but this works on a case-by-case basis and is officially against the terms of the strike, so there’s no guarantee.
5) Stick to a schedule
Without a university timetable framing your week, it might be easy to slip into late nights and waking up in the afternoon, or pushing back work because there’s no longer a set deadline that you need to read that 400 page novel for, but try to maintain a routine as you normally would. Do the reading for when the lecture would normally be, and get up before noon so you can get some work done. It’ll help avoid ending up with a huge stack of work to do just before assessments.
With any luck the strike will be called off and our education will continue (and the money we have to pay back in student debts later in life won’t have been for nothing). Unfortunately, if it does go ahead in its entirety, it is going to significantly play havoc with the rest of the semester, but hopefully the above tips will help you stay on top of work and be ready for whatever happens post-reading week.