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Once, I was under the illusion that a PhD and a first-class undergraduate degree in engineering would lead to a great job with minimal effort.

I had completed some industrial projects/work experience during my PhD, received a few personal and professional development awards and some journal and conference publications. Although I lacked full-time industrial placement/experience in my field, I deemed my professional portfolio reasonably good.

The Covid-19 outbreak has changed the way that universities function. Prior to the pandemic, thousands of students from all over the world descended on campuses to learn in lectures, discuss ideas during seminars, socialise with peers and join societies and clubs.

From 1 January 2021, the new UK immigration system will lead to many changes for EU/EEA nationals wishing to live, study and work in the UK

The UK government announced on 23 June this year that EU, EEA and Swiss nationals and their family members will not retain their current entitlement to home fee status or financial support from Student Finance England for courses starting in the 2021-2022 academic year.

This announcement covers tuition fee status and eligibility for student finance in England only. We are waiting to hear from the other countries in the UK.

From this autumn, international students who study at UK universities will be able to stay and work for two years after graduation, by applying for the newly announced Graduate Immigration Route.

The Graduate Immigration Route will be available to international students who have completed a degree at undergraduate level or above at a higher education provider with a track record of compliance and who have a valid Tier 4 visa at the time of application.

Systematic and structural distribution of resources, power, and access largely benefit white people and has effectively excluded people of colour.

This reality is made possible by institutional racism, which of course is the same system that was designed to bolster white supremacy and patriarchy and was responsible for the enslavement of approximately 12.5 million Africans.

I accepted the offer of admission from ESMT Berlin in July 2018 and visited the campus for the first time in September that year. It was such an impressive-looking building, and I was so excited at knowing that come January I would be spending a year here learning and growing.

How could I have chosen the university without having seen the campus in person? Well, Berlin itself wasn’t unknown to me; I had taken vacations to Berlin before and knew I loved it. 

When my university offered students the option to take their spring 2020 classes as pass-no pass, I believed it was doing the right thing. Alleviating the pressure of grades during a wobbly second half of the semester seemed like it would free students to focus on actual learning and less on performance.

In my experience, however, the option largely did the opposite: many of my students agonised over whether to take advantage of this option, not out of concerns of whether they would learn more deeply, but how a P grade would look to everyone else.

The Covid-19 pandemic has altered everyone’s lives significantly and students certainly weren’t exempt. We were unable to return to university and sit our examinations as normal and so many universities resorted to online exams.

In our current global situation, exams might not seem a priority. But, for students, exam stress combined with pandemic stress makes for a pretty hectic time. Here’s my experience with online exams and how they actually ended up alleviating my stress levels.

What were my online exams? 

According to a recent survey, more than one in five students applying for undergraduate places are considering deferring for a year if their university will not be operating as it usually would. I think it’s pretty obvious that the “new normal” will extend to universities but by how much and for how long is open for debate. 

During the normal hustle and bustle of the Harvard semester, I’d find myself invited to the occasional fraternity party or for a coffee date at the adorable Blue Bottle cafe nestled between Plympton and Mount Auburn Street. A lingering sense of guilt and pressure to return to the libraries or turn up to office hours with a professor rather than relaxing by the Charles River eating strawberries was ever present. Every now and then, I’d reluctantly ask myself, “Didn’t I come here to learn?”