I’ve got autism and I feel abandoned by my university during this crisis

The Covid-19 crisis has put immense pressure on all citizens of the world to carry on with business as usual despite the severe disruption to everyday life, and students are not exempt from these difficulties. However, in my experience as a student with a disability, since the coronavirus pandemic unfolded my university has shown complete disregard for my wellbeing. This is a pattern that I fear is being repeated throughout the UK.

I am a third-year student studying a BA in education studies at a university in England. I have been diagnosed with autism, something my university has been aware of since my enrolment.

Although my autism rarely plays a negative role in my studying, since the coronavirus crisis I have found myself virtually incapable of maintaining normality.

Autistic people rely on pattern making and routine as a coping mechanism to help with oversensitivity to stimuli, anxiety, and other issues. Life in the UK has become so unsettling that this coping mechanism has become virtually non-existent for me and many other sufferers. I find communication through emails, virtual tutorials and phone calls extremely difficult because of my disability. When I informed the university that I am struggling, it provided me no alternatives.  

Since the university closed, I have received very little communication from them, no mental health support, zero welfare checks or offers of additional support for my disability. The communication we have received from our lecturers has highlighted our requirements to continue with our assignments, but they show an utter lack of empathy to the complex situations that students now find themselves in. Instead of enquiring if we need additional mental health support or assistance, they ask us “have you settled into a good study habit?” or have instructed us on how to connect computers to our mobile phones using a hotspot.

We have all been granted mandatory two-week extensions on all pending assignments, but this is not enough. My lecturers appear unable to grasp the difficulties students may have in completing assignments. Many students find themselves unable to access resources, are key workers or have moved back to homes with younger siblings also home from school and families in financial difficulties stressed to breaking point.

Many of the core readings for my modules are unavailable online, which adds even more worry to this particularly difficult time. I fear that the university will fail to understand why the quality of my assignments will not be equal to that of my previous work. Circumstances have changed drastically, however the university does not seem to have grasped this.

Unfortunately, disabled people often feel neglected, forgotten or, at times, like second-class citizens, with many of us unable to speak up when we need additional aid for fear of ridicule or refusal. The university’s neglect in regard to one of its most vulnerable students is unacceptable.

I have raised these concerns with the university and after two days of begging for help, they finally gave me a point of contact, but their advice has consistently been to “be patient and wait”. I suffer from acute anxiety as a result of my disability, so being patient and waiting is not an option for someone with my condition and speaks to the general lack of empathy the university has for its most vulnerable students.

As a third-year BA student, I have done 75 per cent of my degree, with two assignments and a dissertation still to be completed before graduating.

The university could alleviate additional stress for all of its students by acknowledging that our grades from the assignments still to be completed will not be given comparable weighting to previously submitted work, if we can indeed submit any work at all.

Therefore, similarly to GCSE and A-level pupils, our lecturers should look at our previous body of work and award us an average grade based on our previously submitted assignments, so that we may tackle this crisis with stability and no additional stress.

I find myself gripped with anxiety, suffering panic attacks induced by my disability, and am unable to complete my remaining assignments. If I cannot complete my assignments, £60,000 and three years of hard work and dedication will be for nothing. My future prospects will be ruined by a crisis I have no control over and an education system that has failed one of its most vulnerable students.

I know I am not alone in this and speak for many disabled or vulnerable students who cannot speak out. I can only hope things will change for us before it is too late and our futures forfeited.

The author is a third-year undergraduate student in England.