Anyone who has started studying in the past year and a half has most likely never seen their university from the inside: For three semesters, the doors of all universities were locked due to the pandemic. Studying no longer meant exchanging ideas in the seminar room and then having a coffee with fellow students on campus, but rather listening to lectures recorded in front of the screen. Now that is changing: In the winter semester starting this Monday, face-to-face events are again allowed.
Young people are also streaming through the front doors at the university locations in the district, for example at the Technical University in Garching, where more than 20,000 students are enrolled for the winter semester. According to the principle “presence, where possible, digital, where necessary”, most of the events take place on site, as student representative Fabian Richter reports. Only some major events, such as computer science lectures with up to 800 participants, need to be held online.
Heinrich Jung, Dean of Studies at the Faculty of Biology on the campus of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Martinsried, confirms that after three semesters of online teaching, everything cannot be switched back to face-to-face immediately. “We discussed for ourselves at the faculty that this is a process of transition that we are going through in stages.”
According to Jung, all lecturers are called upon to offer digital alternatives in addition to face-to-face courses. Because many students have a strong desire to return to campus, to be able to exchange ideas with fellow students and professors. But there are also the cautious. “I understand both sides. We have to find a solution for everyone,” says Jung. Online teaching will therefore be retained, at least in part, for a longer period of time.
Anyone who decides to take part in the face-to-face events must be vaccinated, tested or recovered. In order to get into the holy halls, the students are checked for appropriate evidence – in Garching randomly at the entrance doors, in Martinsried by the security service at the main entrance. Students are a group of the population who tend to be willing to vaccinate, as is shown by a survey by the Biology Department, reported by Jung: According to this, around 90 percent of the students on the Bachelor’s degree have already been vaccinated twice. “That calms us down a lot.” To ensure that the vaccination rate continues to rise, a large vaccination campaign takes place on the campus in Garching on the first and second day of the beginning of the semester.
The Garching location, with its many practical courses, is not made for online teaching. “Think of laboratory work or working together on a machine, that cannot take place online,” says TU spokesman Ulrich Meyer. Mathematics student Richter also believes that even puzzling out mathematical equations can be better debated together.
The course lives from internships
The Dean of Studies Jung from Martinsried describes it in a similar way: “Biology is an experimental science.” The course lives from the internships, during which the students can try out and research for themselves. That was not possible in the past three semesters. “There are many who, for example, have never had a pipette in their hand. They are really hungry now.”
However, with the opening of the university, well-known problems are also reappearing. “The limited space is really a big problem that we run into,” says the student representative Richter. A campus building for the math and computer science faculty, which was originally built for 5,000 students, is to offer space for 9,000 students. That would be a challenge even without the stricter distance rules. There will probably also be a lack of learning rooms, because more and more seminars will now take place in the previous training rooms.
Overall, however, the anticipation predominates. “We’re all tense, but direct contact is just fun,” says Jung. Last week, after a long time, he was able to welcome students back to campus for the introductory events for the freshmen – how happy he is, you can tell in the conversation. In his own words, in the online seminars, Jung often looked mostly into black windows because many participants had deactivated their cameras. It was difficult to record reactions as a result, says Jung. “Now I finally see again: She’s smiling or frowning and probably didn’t quite understand something.” This way, Jung can respond better to his students again.