Vision says:
It’s more than merely exasperating to come back to a campus in such an ill-prepared state, as anyone that tried to work in the library over spring and summer term last year can testify – it’s now become an active impediment to successful study for countless students.
For freshers, the problem is even more worrying. Coming to university for the first time is an invariably intimidating experience at the ebst of times – faced with such a wilderness of scaffolding and unfinished building work, the situation is only exacerbated.
Making up for the architectural oversights of yesteryear is of course a laudable aim, and Vision accepts that renovation of this kind is often subject to unavoidable delays and hold-ups, but surely the schedule could have been phased so that vital accessways such as the Vanbrugh-Wentworth bridge aren’t out of order for the very start of term, when campus is at its most active.
Thumbs up to:
The plans to build 11 new blocks of student flats on Hull Road. Giving students additional options when making such a critical decision as moving house can only be a good thing in itself, but the benefits don’t end there.
As the flats are all privately owned, they will doubtless be built to high specification, catering to a corner of the market that is definitely underserviced in York. Hopefully, the high standards in the new flats will provide an incentive to fix up the dire state of some campus accommodation.
Local residents’ complaints show that they clearly subscribe to the ‘lecherous lout’ school of student stereotypes – it’s up to us to prove them wrong.
Thumbs down to:
The Lord Browne report. Its proposed hike in fees (by up to £10,000) is a sum that the vast majority of families can ill afford. Splitting future generations of students along a class divide cannot be countenanced.
The college system in America is a prime example. Tuition fees there border on the exorbitant, and almost render the college experience a privilege only open to very well-off.
While of course we as students should never take higher education for granted, Vision believes that every student, regardless of background, should be able to study what they want, where they want.