Rujuta Nayak

Graduate Student, Master of Architecture, School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, University of Calgary, Canada

Interviewed October 2020 by Mac McGinn

MM Rujuta, let’s start off with you telling us a little bit about yourself.

RN I’m living in Mumbai, India, right now because of the pandemic. I got admitted into the master of architecture program at the University of Calgary in 2018. I’m so glad that the school came up with plans quickly so that we could join online and still continue studying. I’m doing my M1 this year and, although it’s online, so far it’s been great. I struggle with the time difference sometimes, but I’m just glad that I am able to do what I love to do.

MM How has your learning changed in 2020 compared to other years?

RN I was born and raised in India and my education has not been particularly technical, in that I’ve always gone to school by attending in-class. It’s a completely different atmosphere that I’m going through right now, but everyone is quite supportive. We’re all new to this and I don’t think anyone is well-versed. We are all holding each other’s hands and getting along and doing what we can. It’s interesting and just a very new experience.

MM Absolutely. So in that light, what are some opportunities that you think have been created by the switch to online education?

RN One of the most positive aspects of digital education for me as an international student is that I can be with my family. They mean the world to me. It’s such a relief that I can spend time with them and do my courses at the same time. In the foundation year, it was a completely different story because I was living in Calgary, by myself. It was my first time living alone. Coping with taking my master’s and being without my family was a difficult situation. Having the ability to be with my family this year is only possible because of online education.

MM People always say that it’s pure isolation when you’re doing classes remotely, but many students like you also get to spend more time with their family. There’s definitely a twist there. What challenges are you seeing from remote learning, especially as an international student?

RN I would like to touch on two primary challenges that I’m facing. One is that I’m not getting the chance to be in person with classmates like you. That is a challenge because we don’t get to connect informally, though we do connect formally over Zoom calls where we have all our meetings and discussions. We even break out into informal conversations sometimes, but I think if I were there, it would have been even closer and more intimate in that sense. We could have even gone for coffee or maybe just hung around at each other’s place or something like that. So I think that is one of the primary challenges that I’m facing.

The second challenge is the time difference. Because I am in India, it is around eleven and a half, twelve hours ahead of Calgary. When it is morning out there, it’s night here and when it’s night here, it’s morning out there. That’s a challenge in itself but you get used to it eventually. Getting used to it is the only solution to the second problem. I started practising a month in advance by getting myself used to the Calgary schedule. But honestly, I can’t even get into the Calgary schedule because I’m living a life here. I still need to do things like buy groceries and go to the makerspaces for my projects. In that sense, I feel like I’m not living in the Indian time zone, and I’m not living in the Calgarian time zone either. I’m living in maybe the UK time zone. It’s somewhere in between, but it’s fine. I’m getting used to it.

MM With these different challenges that you’re presented with, what types of tools are helping you with remote learning?

RN The primary tool is Zoom. Anything like Zoom or Skype is really helpful for connecting with people. I even tried WhatsApp to call my groupmate in Mexico. My peers and I use OneDrive and Google Docs for sharing documents. We also obviously use Gmail or our e-mail programs. There are tons of tools we use because everything is digital. We use anything and everything that’s available.

MM Other than tools, do you have any favourite types of resources that you use for remote learning?

RN Of course, I use D2L a lot because most of our content is posted there and it’s where we get first-hand information regarding our assignments and course content. Then that leads to a lot of research. Being in architecture, we frequently use ArchDaily, Dezeen or other websites like that which are architecturally relevant. I also use the UCalgary library portal. It’s quite helpful to go to the library website and download books, and handling the information is easy because we can copy-paste everything we need into documents. Although I do miss going to the library and picking up books in person. I prefer having books in my hand over reading them digitally.

MMWhat do you expect higher education to look like going forward?

RN Honestly, I’m happy that I’m experiencing this atmosphere right now. Had this pandemic not happened, we probably wouldn’t have moved or had this shift so suddenly. In general, if you ask me about developed countries like Canada or the US, it might be possible for us to keep using these online platforms for our benefit. For example, students can connect on Zoom and work on their projects independently, while also working together. Doing this enables you to get each other’s feedback and have those more informal conversations, similar to what happens when we’re in the studio. We have the flexibility to do this, but we don’t yet have the acceptance of doing it online. I don’t think we’ve got fully comfortable with having a group of people online working on their own in a purely informal setting. Moving forward, having the option to work online together like this would be nice.

If you consider developing countries, or countries which still do not have a lot of facilities like here in India, there has been no contingency plan set up for students, so the students have not yet moved forward into the next year. I’m glad I’m going to a Canadian university, but not everybody gets to have a foreign education. I don’t see the online transformation happening here in India anytime soon. I feel it’s going to take a lot of effort and financing to get set up with online learning; we’re just not prepared. For the future of higher education in countries like Canada, the US and the UK, there might be a combination of both in-person and online learning. You can have in-person learning but at the same time have the informal setting where we can all be online together at the same time. I think a combination of both would be quite helpful.

MM Thank you, Rujuta. It’s interesting to have you share your international perspective and to know that certain countries do not have the ability to create these contingency plans.

RN Yes, for example, if you go just two or three hours outside of Mumbai, there’s still the challenge of not having adequate Wi-Fi and Internet connection. This costs a lot and students are on their own; there’s no financial support from the government or additional help from the community. I think a lot of students out there studying in these small villages, outside the city. They are suffering. There’s a wide socio-economic gap, where there are people who are really rich and people who are really poor. They don’t even have laptops for studying. At schools here, having a laptop is not mandatory because you still read from printed textbooks and write your notes by hand. It’s a different world. I really feel sad for these students because they’ve had to put their studies on hold for an entire year and the government has still not come up with a contingency plan. It’s sad because there’s very little anybody can do about it. Because of the high population of India, the other challenges the government is facing are huge. But this is something that’s happening to a lot of students. There are students who have been accepted at universities in places like the UK, Canada or the US, but they haven’t been able to do their final exams yet and they’re still here. Had I been studying at a school in India at any academic level, despite having financial stability, I would have been left out too because there’s no plan B. For me, honestly, I just got lucky.

Reflection

The COVID-19 pandemic has certainly impacted on each one of us in many ways. My journey in the last year has been no different, as I have personally learned and experienced the transition from in-class learning to seeking education in the online world while in my master of architecture program.

On the master’s program, which is one the most integral stages for academics, the shift from in-class to online came with its own set of challenges, including learning through different mediums with little scope to have a deeper understanding of the software, a lack of practical learning, and the inability to interact with the cohort informally. However, learning online has taken the Internet by storm as most millennial students, including me, are dependent in terms of the use of various online platforms to seek education. This has eventually compelled many of us to seek collaborations and group learning which help in resolving many of the challenges. For instance, I recall the Spring semester being one of the shortest semesters, with immense schoolwork on hand that had to be generated in a short period of time, with the groups assigned. It seemed difficult in the beginning. However, brainstorming over long Zoom sessions helped us in resolving most of the challenges collectively and enabled us to sail through the intense semester successfully. I believe that as time passes, each one of us will get a stronger hold of the situation and we can respond positively to the circumstances presented.

I recollect, early on in Fall 2020, when the shift to online teaching was made, I was nervous to begin learning online as I was living away in my home country, India. Factors such as the difference in time zones and lack of physical presence of the faculty and cohort made me think twice about continuing the program. However, the situation then was getting worse in India. Realizing the fact that many students in India were not availing quality education due to the circumstances, I found myself to be fortunate for being associated with the Department of Architecture, SAPL (School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape), and the University of Calgary, as they were swiftly upgrading and providing the transformation that was desired by many. I quickly, without any hesitation, enrolled in the courses and since then I have been glad about the decision that I made.

To touch upon the current educational situation in my homeland, I feel the shift to online education has led to a steep rise for many EdTech companies, including Byju’s, a Bengaluru-based start-up, capturing substantial world markets. However, on the one hand, we have the EdTech giants scaling new heights and on the other hand, we have the situation of inaccessibility and unavailability of devices and infrastructure problems on the grassroots level in rural India, making it impossible for students to seek education.

Given the flexibility of balancing my professional and personal life and being able to stay in my home country while availing myself of a master’s from a premier University in Canada, the shift to online education has impacted me in a positive sense. But making an equitable position for all is very challenging considering the socio-economic disparity and infrastructural unavailability for many countries. Though I feel the online mode of studying should persist due to the benefits it has offered, although the lack of physically learning has certainly impacted my education in ways I am yet to discover. However, I am truly grateful for this experience even though I did not plan for it!

About

Rujuta Nayak is a returning graduate student in the master of architecture program at the School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape, University of Calgary, Canada. In the 2018–2019 academic year, she was admitted to the program and took the foundation year level courses. Before pursuing architecture, she graduated with a master of commerce from the University of Mumbai, India. She also has an apprenticeship certificate from the J.J. School of Applied Art, a premier school for art and architectural education in India. She is passionate about travel, the environment, and the socio-cultural impacts of society.