COVID Diaries: Completing final year in lockdown

Final year Agriculture with Farm Business Management (Top-Up) student Hannah Thompson shares her experience of studying from home, including online lectures by Course Manager Russell Readman who's written a blog about his experience of teaching remotely. 

The life of a final year student is challenging no matter what, although Covid-19 has really thrown a spanner in the works. The library is often our first home with the café being our second to fuel us with caffeine, alas we have all had to adapt to the concept of ‘working from home’, which for most agriculture students involves a lot of distractions from the subject that you are trying to study…farming.

As the lockdown set in on the 23rd March, most farms were in the crucial time of lambing, calving, spring drilling or fertiliser spreading. “What a perfect time to be stuck at home!” said all Agrics. But as this soon died down and lambs were turned out to pastures new, dissertation hand-in and alternative online assessments, instead of our standard exams, sprung up on us as we also ventured into pastures new in the form online learning.

As brilliant as lecturers have been, technology is not always the easiest to grasp, especially for the old dogs learning new tricks. Lecture recordings with no sound (thank you to Russell for the quick retake), dogs and cats interrupting Teams assessment meetings as well as venturing to the kitchen the 22nd cup of tea of the day has really made my final exams and learning… unique and somewhat of an anti-climax to my final year at Harper. Not only is it our library and face-to-face lectures that we have been deprived of but the social life and the Wednesday nights in the Students' Union.

However, in true blue (Harper Adams) style, we have knuckled down and got on with it the best we can in such unprecedented circumstances and with most students have been helping to feed the nation, we are all in anticipation of our unforgettable graduation celebrations whenever that may be.

Stay safe and keep farming,
Hannah Thompson
BSc (Hons) Agriculture with Farm Business Management (Top-Up)