OU blog

Personal Blogs

Helen Godding

What a weird end....

Visible to anyone in the world
Edited by Helen Godding, Tuesday, 14 Jul 2020, 12:43

Now seems like a really weird time for my first post! I had intended to make use of this much earlier in my studies but it turns out, I was too busy studying! Who knew!? Still, I'm only a year in to a course that is likely to take 6, so I figured that it is definitely not too late.


I, like all of us, have been affected by Coronavirus (Covid-19, bloody corona, beer disease, these are just a few of the politer names that I have heard!). Not only have we been in lockdown, unable to see family and friends, unable to go to the shops and for many, worked from home and attempted to prevent our children from killing each other whilst simultaneously trying with all our might not to kill them ourselves (or so I have heard from my parent friends), our studies have been interrupted in a way we could never have imagined.


For those who haven't ever been OU students, the general opinion seems to be, 'well you study online anyway so what difference does it make?'. Well actually, quite a lot. Not only have our face to face tutorials been cancelled (for many of us our only real interaction with our fellow course comrades), assignments have been cancelled, (I expect exams have faced the same fate, although my current module is TMAs only so I am not an authority on that) and we have all been left in a state of confusion. Confusion over what this means for our module result, what this might mean for our degree and not to mention graduation for those who were studying their final module/year! I am sure that the OU will wave their magic wand and all that is currently unclear will become so, but until then who knows!


As an NHS employee and a should have been 2020 bride, the impact that I have felt this year has been phenomenal. Work has overtaken study, and dread has overtaken excitement when I think about 5th September, the date that I should have been becoming a Mrs. I have certainly felt close to breaking point and I know that my studies have suffered as a result. I was very tempted to defer to give myself a do-over but frankly, if one more thing has to be next year instead of this, I just might implode!


Yes the number of people who have lost their lives is definitely the most horrible thing to have come out of this retched pandemic, but I also think that is okay for us all to feel a little bit cheated.


There isn't a real point to this post, other than to hopefully make you feel less like you are alone in feeling this way.


I wish you all the very best in your studies and will have my fingers crossed for us all when it comes to our module results.


Roll on 2021!!


Feel free to share your lockdown experiences/feelings in the comments, I would love to hear from you!


Helen x  


Permalink 1 comment (latest comment by Darren Menachem Drapkin, Tuesday, 14 Jul 2020, 13:41)
Share post

This blog might contain posts that are only visible to logged-in users, or where only logged-in users can comment. If you have an account on the system, please log in for full access.

Total visits to this blog: 3639