Alone, Together

It took Sophie much longer than she’d like to admit to recognise her own face. Staring at the glossy screen, the reflection was hollow. When had her eyes lost their usual warmth? When had they become so black and heavy? The only light left was from the computer screen, a Zoom meeting. 

One square was lit up.  

Her lecturer. 

Dozens of other squares were there too.  

Names without faces. 

Sophie was brought back to focus when she heard the lecturer ask a question. She did not know what question was asked, nor did she really care. Evidently, the other names on the screen shared a similar opinion. 

The lecturer’s square pulsed green again.  

Sophie heard him this time. In fact, she knew the answer. The lecturer was reading a question directly from the textbook, one of the eight chapters assigned to her this week alone. She had already read through them and had grasped the theory, but theory wasn’t the problem here.  

A period of awkward silence. 

Sophie imagined crickets chirping. 

‘Let’s move on then.’ 

The process continued. Even though Sophie couldn’t see her classmates, she could picture them well. Only some of them she had met in person, but that didn’t matter.  

She envisioned the eyes. Heavy shadows, weighed down with sleep.  

Faces, drained of life.  

Sitting in a small dimly lit room, alone.  

None of them had the energy to engage. None of them saw the point to engage. This was only the fifth week of the first semester of the next three years of their lives. It shouldn’t have been like this. Sophie felt betrayed, she felt lied to. It wasn’t long ago that she had made the jump. 

Out of secondary, into tertiary. Out of childhood, into adulthood. Out of order, into chaos. 

It was meant to be the next grand chapter of her life. Newfound independence, new friends, new opportunities. They had told her university was going to be the best part of her life.  

Yet here she was. 

A name amongst dozens of other squares, yet alone. 

Paying dearly for accommodation, her bank account suffering. Working weekends to make it by. All to listen to a pulsing green square talk to her about the theory she’d already spent hours upon hours reviewing.  

There had to be a change. 

Sophie’s name moved up the screen. 

The virtual hand was up, and mute symbol off. 

‘When will we have an opportunity to put this theory into practice?’ she asked. Sophie knew this was the question they’d all been thinking. When were they going to get out of their rooms? When were they going to get into one of the labs the uni liked to advertise as ‘world class’?  

Sophie held her breath. 

This was it. 

Finally, she would get what she paid for. 

The lecturer responded. 

‘We have a practical lab session scheduled for next Wednesday from 3-4PM.’ 

Sophie’s heart dropped. Only an hour? She spat a retort back. 

‘How can we put whole textbooks of theory into practice in only an hour of lab session?’ 

Sophie imagined the heads of her classmates nodding in approval. 

‘There’ll be another one the week after as well.’ 

‘And how long will that go on for?’ 

The lecturer hesitated. ‘Also an hour.’ 

‘But after that we’re expected to go onto our placements! I’m not going to be able to perform anything I’ve been taught. When I signed up for this course, I signed up to be taught on campus. Instead, you’ve thrown us into online classrooms, sprinkling in pathetic amounts of lab work. How does that make any sense? Do you want untrained nurses?’ 

The lecturer was fired up now, it was clear he was stressed too. ‘We just can’t afford it. Take it up with the heads of school.’ 

Sophie didn’t know how to respond. So that was that then. A nurse with next to no hands-on experience. She’d be heading out to her unpaid placement soon, expected to pick up the slack on a pressured medical system, completing tasks she hadn’t been trained to do. 

She was here to help the world. 

It seemed the world wasn’t going to help her.