I am going to have to level with you: it is very difficult to have thoughts on/between/before a deadline, and it feels as if this last week has had a semester’s worth. The dark nights of November come as a surprise every year, and this year I am even more indignant – a global pandemic…
The crisis in mental health—especially men’s mental health—predates the pandemic, but it’s impact has compounded the levels of anxiety, depression and other issues dealt with by people across the country. This November, the moustache-growing charity Movember has embraced the digital world of COVID-19 and wants to have a conversation about men’s health with a profound…
The UCC Class of 2020 has been addressed by An Taoiseach Micheál Martin as they graduated through virtual conferring ceremonies this week and last. Almost 5,000 students graduated in the Autumn Conferrings, moved from the Devere Hall to a livestream on the university website as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. There were twenty-six dedicated…
The sudden onset of Covid-19 in early March required a rapid re-think of how normal assessment processes would work from home. Temporary measures were put in place to address the added pressure of the pandemic to the summer exam season, but UCC has made the decision to rescind such measures for this academic year. In…
My bookmarks bar fulfills the English-student stereotype, because slotted between Canvas and ‘UCC Library Home’ is a slowly-filling folder marked ‘Poetry.’ Mid-way through lockdown (the first), The Cut published an article by Matthew Schneider—’Now is the Perfect Time to Memorise a Poem’—detailing his self-conscious party-trick and grounding-technique of rote learning poems, alongside the prologue of…
Last semester, the method of testing students migrated from the seated rows of exam halls to the space of one’s own bedroom as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. With this necessary distancing between students and superintendents, came a further distance from the usual observation and close inspection of an exam hall. The Union of…
As the university campus and accommodations emptied on March 12th upon the announcement of a global pandemic and college closure, the international student population had more decisions to make than the average student – how to get home, and how to return to UCC when or if the need arose. Students from overseas make up…
By the time this paper goes to print, we will be 1 week into 6 at Level 5—now exhausted by Heaney quotes and seanfhocails, no longer moved by “if we winter this out, we can summer anywhere” because we are wintering right where we summered: lockdown. We need to be here, and it’s both bizarre…
On World Mental Health Day (October 10th), Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris launched the first National Student Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Framework to support students’ wellbeing. The report is preceded by a foreword where Minister Harris accounts for the mental health impact of “a year like no other.” “For students, it…
The Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation (INMO) has warned the government that the “exploitation” of student nurses has been intensified by the pandemic. “Our students are being taken for granted,” INMO General Secretary, Phil Ní Sheaghdha, said. “They are facing huge workloads and risking COVID infection. And while they are doing indispensable work, they are…