Someone Else

Now, I’ve talked about myself a fair amount already – and I’m not done yet, sorry. But, although this is my blog, which obviously tells my story, I also want to dedicate some time and posts to others who are in a similar situation to me. Whose education has also been interrupted as a result of the virus. So that’s what we’re gonna do here.

As I’ve said before, I’m close to obtaining my MA in journalism from a Dutch university. Next to theory courses, there are also practical classes on skills useful in the field. That involves, for example, camera and editing work.

But how are you supposed to learn those skills if you can’t go to uni? If everything is online? If you don’t have access to cameras?

I spoke to Ilaria, another journalism student, who now finds herself asking those exact questions. The university has suspended all physical classes until September.

A quick introduction: Ilaria is from Italy originally, but has lived in other European countries for the past several years, mainly Belgium and now the Netherlands, where she stayed throughout this crisis. Her home region, where most of her family still lives, is Lombardy, which she referred to as “the COVID capital”. Her brother-in-law was infected and was in the hospital for three weeks but has fortunately recovered.

How have your experiences impacted your view of the situation?

I wonder… If this thing hadn’t hit so close to home, would I have been so upset from the beginning and would I have been aware of how dangerous it was? People were literally laughing at me while I was very scared and very worried.

The week before the university closed, so beginning of March, and the week after for me were really, really bad weeks, because the situation in Italy was already really bad. And at the same time, the Netherlands was taking this very lightly. I was kind of arguing with everyone because everyone thought I was paranoid, and nobody realized how bad the situation was. Now it’s better, because I think the seriousness has been understood by everyone. But in the beginning, it was really frustrating.

What was your reaction to the university suspending physical classes until September?

When they closed, I was fine with it. I thought it should close, because it could be dangerous otherwise, but then I never thought about this quarantine going on till June. I never really considered ‘oh, if it closes, this is going to be bad for my education. Also because I never really thought long-term. I was just thinking about safety. And now I’m like ‘f**k, this could go on for a long time’.

How has the coronavirus impacted your education?

We still have the theory classes online. There weren’t a lot of them left, so that went pretty smoothly. The only big question mark is the video module (a class on video recording and editing).

What was the situation like a few weeks ago?

We didn’t receive any definitive answers from the university. It was all up in the air.

A couple of weeks ago, we received an e-mail pretty much saying the module would go on anyway; we would start on the 26th of May. And ‘we hope we can do it around Harmony (a university building), and if we cannot use the university premises, here is a program that you can download. It’s not exactly the editing program that you would use on the computers at school, but it’s similar. We can pay for it for the month’.

What was the reaction like?

Everyone was a bit perplexed.

I think they were kind of bombarded with emails from us. I understand that this is a difficult situation for everyone, but this is not what we paid for. Because it’s like ‘if we cannot do it in person, we are going to do it online, and it’s going to be the same’.

But if we cannot be there, it’s not just no face-to-face instruction on how to use the editing program, which is already kind of difficult to do online. But how are we supposed to learn how to use the equipment? What are we going to do, are we going to take videos with our phones? And maybe we’re not gonna be allowed to see people and go around if it’s not necessary. Who am I going to interview?

What happened then?

After all that, we got another e-mail hypothesizing different scenarios, and we also received a survey, asking who was here and what time students preferred – and then we were waiting for them to respond to us. It was kind of like ‘okay, we can do this completely online if there’s no chance to do it another way, and then maybe in September, we can do a one-week bootcamp for the people who are going to be here’.

It’s all very stupid. They also realized that some people are not going to be in town, and some people are not gonna be able to come back. For us, the best option would’ve been to do this module in September. But they’re like ‘oh, we cannot do the module in September, because in September there are going to be other people using the premises, so there’s not going to be space for you, and the video cameras are going to be used by other people’.

Apparently, they are more worried about the people who are going to be in class in September than they are worried about us. 

And what is it like now?

Recently, we got an email, saying that they will do a 5-week remote course starting on the 26th, plus a “boot camp” week in September – when, hopefully, we will be able to use the big video cameras and do a live show. But the September week is on voluntary basis, I think, because a bunch of people left the country.

For the bootcamp, we still haven’t heard anything about how the course is going to go down, like how many hours per day or week, which days, or even how are we going to be evaluated. I think they may have been waiting for the next big press conference to see how free are we going to be to roam around.

What was your response to that?

This situation, it’s not the university’s fault. But it’s not our fault either. Even if there’s people using the premises, they have from now till September to figure things out. They’re saying that we’re going to get the same amount and the same quality of teaching, but unless it’s exactly the same program as we were promised, it’s not going to be the same quality of teaching.

How could this affect your future?

I don’t think most of us are going to be able to do the internship in October or whenever, because there’s this massive amount of people that have been delayed before us. I don’t have a problem with having a delay. The market is going to be a complete disaster. It’s not like, if I graduate earlier, I’m going to have a massive amount of job offers.

The interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.