Mind The Gap

The impact of the coronavirus pandemic will be far-reaching and long-lasting. The full health, social and emotional cost of the disease is still unknown, but it is clear that we have all been touched one way or another.

One group that has been uniquely affected are those eighteen-year olds who were planning to go to university this year. I wrote previously about the epidemic’s effect on the anticlimactic end to their time at school; it struck me that it was rather like a prize fighter who, after months of training, technique and motivational psychology, steps into the ring only to watch his opponent trip on his bootlace and knock himself out on one of the corner posts.

Adding to their discomfort, those school leavers who were looking to move on to the next phase of their education face a dilemma. Do they continue with their plans to go to university and face a term or even a year of a socially distanced environment, with contact limited to small group tutorials and the occasional Zoom call? Or, do they wait and see till next year; reapply and take that evergreen staple of student life, the gap year.

It is not an easy choice. Certainly, the latter option seems attractive. Who wants a sterile experience of a quasi-distance learning experience, with all of the isolation that would involve? For many young people, university is a life-changing experience defined in their first term. Meeting people from different backgrounds, sitting in student rooms long into the night having pretentious conversations, trying out new experiences both intellectual and not; all of these make university life exhilarating. A Freshers’ Week conducted via Microsoft Teams not quite so appealing.

However, deferring a place – or withdrawing altogether – is problematic. The competition for places in 2021 is likely to be the fiercest we have seen in many years. There will be another round of school-leavers who will enter the fray (an increased number demographically next year) and the overseas students who make up increasingly more of the undergraduate intake will be likely to return in force. Getting a place at that Russell group university will be a much stiffer challenge next time round, particularly when we are likely to see an unseemly scramble for students on results day this year even from the most prestigious institutions. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, and it will be tempting indeed for youngsters to claim a place at an institution that may feel out of their reach even now.

To those for whom the prospect of a first term in lockdown is intolerable, the question arises of how they will spend their unexpected year off. Whilst the experience of the last three months stuck at home with their parents is likely to have inspired many to flee as soon as they can, the traditional year backpacking round the world seems risky. The alternative of working behind a bar for a year is likely to be tricky too, as they will be competing against those who have sadly lost their jobs in the epidemic.

There is of course no right answer for these men and women and what they decide to do will no doubt be informed by their own individual experiences and ambitions. In general, my advice would be to go for it. It may be a weird start, but university life is, if not quite a marathon, then a middle-distance race rather than a sprint. All things shall pass and that includes this pandemic; it will be a buyers’ market more than ever before in August, and students are much more of a prized commodity than they perhaps realise.