Making up for lost time: University students' quest to reclaim missed opportunities while adjusting to post-COVID life in higher education

A small-scale qualitative case study of students at a post-1992 university in England sought to understand the nuanced experiences of returning to face-to-face study following the pandemic. Whilst much has been written about the effects of studying online, much less is known about how students adapted once they returned to campus-based delivery. Specifically, the paper focuses on student motivations to pursue Higher Education, and the ways that they blended digital-learning habits learned during the pandemic with their experiences and demands of campus life in the immediate aftermath. This study expands on existing scholarship by detailing how students managed the isolation, loneliness, and disrupted ‘sense of belonging’ emerging from and during pandemic-related lockdowns and online learning. We show how students returned to campus delivery invigorated and eager to immerse themselves in real time pedagogic and extracurricular experiences. Notwithstanding the difficulties of adaptation, their hopeful narratives balance the findings of other studies that suggest students are struggling to re-engage with traditional modes of university delivery.