The University of Canterbury restarted the last of their courses last week, and has stated that they still intend to carry out a full academic year.
The first term has already been cut in half by the devastating February 22 earthquake which closed the campus down.
In order to make up time and fit all courses in, classes now run from 8am till 8pm during the week, and also include 8am till 12pm on Saturday mornings.
There is currently no functioning library and many faculties have been relocated due to damage. Students are being offered $500 refunds to make up for inaccessible services.
The Vice-Chancellor Rod Carr released a statement on the university webpage thanking people for their support and patience.
“We are definitely moving forward and while there are frustrations in our current situation, we can and will address many of these over the next days and weeks.“
Ex-Victoria student Ellen Taylor has not heard when her second year law papers will restart again, while, due to lack of teaching space, her psychology paper will only have two labs over the entire course.
Another Canterbury student, Kurt Murray, said that although his engineering course had restarted, only one out of four papers was offering tutorials. He described his experience with classes in tents as “average, because you can’t see in the bigger ones, it’s real hot, and in some of them the microphones and slides don’t work…but it’s better than nothing.”
Intense.