In January, students in Strasbourg between forced holidays and galleys in libraries

It resumes this Monday for students at the University of Strasbourg. A later recovery than usual, as the holidays were extended by a week to reduce the university’s energy consumption. Students who are asked about this extra weekly revision are confused. The organization failed.

When asked about the benefits of his mandatory extra week off on Monday at the University of Strasbourg’s Esplanade campus, Maxime, a law master’s student, is quite blunt: “I’m not going to procrastinate.” The university did not ask us for our opinion and it will be the same next year! He is one of about 60,000 students who resumed classes in Strasbourg on January 9 after the buildings were closed until the first week of January in order to reduce energy consumption.

Not everyone is on the same page before the law school front court. Emeline, L2 law, spent more time with her family. Beside her, her friend Paciane shivers as she wipes the raindrops from her face:

“Yes, it sure is nice if you can go home to your parents. It wasn’t my job, I couldn’t go back. I was alone in my apartment the entire holiday season. Not to mention the heat and more, I was too cold to leave at 18 degrees. »

Rizline replaces her sequined scarf and descends the steps of the law school. The decision to close the university for another week? “Unfortunate,” he says. “It is important that the state maintains university services. As he is used to working in the university library, he did not even try this time: “I spent the week at home. Access to science and law libraries was impossible,” he explains.

Wait an hour to enter the library

During this time, only the Alinea and Studium libraries remained open on the Esplanade campus. At the Studium, almost all 600 places were permanently occupied from January 3 to 8.

The National University Library (BNU), which depends not on the University of Strasbourg but on the province, also experienced significant visitation during this period, points out an agent of the BNU:

“We had more than 90% attendance every day, for example at 3.30pm on Friday 6th January we reached 99% and at other times we were at 105% of our capacity. We had to bring people back. »

Normally, BNU receives 2000-2400 people per day. In the first week of January, the building received more than 4,000 students per day.

Charlain preferred to stay with her parents after receiving testimony from her relatives: “They told me that there is not a single place in the libraries. In Alinea, as in BNU, this was simply not possible. It’s really heartwarming. »

Shift every morning at 8:30

Julien, a chemistry student, lined up in front of BNU every day at 8:30 a.m. to find a seat:

“It was complete abuse. I spent more time waiting in lines for a seat than anything else. Some days I waited over an hour for a seat! Nothing has been thought of so that closure measures do not penalize revision students. »

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On Sunday, Julien even gave up on the idea of ​​​​going to BNU, noting that the occupancy rate on the Internet is more than 90%.

Jake, a little further on, lights a rolled cigarette in front of the chemistry building:

“For my part, I had reserved rooms at BNU each time, but it was a hassle. This closing week has changed the schedule for the rest of the year: we’ll barely finish exams when we get ready to start practical work. The workload will be huge. »

Additional family vacation

Half of the two dozen students surveyed enjoyed using the week as an extension of their vacation. Gabriella, who is in the second year of her master’s degree in sociology, took advantage of the opportunity she had not been able to do for 5 years and returned to Slovakia. Ditto for Maeva, a graduate student in biology who can turn off the heating in her student house back in Lille.

Gabriella used this week to return to her family. (Photo EC / Rue89 Strasbourg / cc)

Just like Maeva, who returned to Lille for three weeks. (Photo EC / Rue89 Strasbourg/cc)

But despite the good time spent, the same students frown when told about an event that can be renewed every year. In such a case, they say that they want to be better organized: “We should have done research to find out whether there will be video lessons. The same goes for February, and now we don’t know anything at all.

The new course calendar encourages University of Strasbourg components, laboratories and services to schedule an additional university holiday week from February 13 to Friday February 17, before the week normally scheduled from February 20. However, most of the students met, for the moment, they do not know anything about it.