‘I haven’t had a single normal year at university’: the UK students graduating without a graded degree

An unlucky cohort of undergraduates has been plagued by Covid restrictions, education strikes and finally a marking boycott

Emily Smith, a final-year geography student at Durham University, never imagined her already heavily disrupted university experience could end like this. She won’t be graduating this summer because half her work remains unmarked owing to a national marking boycott by lecturers.

She refuses to attend the “completion ceremony” Durham has offered her instead. Without an actual degree classification it seems like a “farce”. Like so many in this deeply unlucky cohort of students, she feels this is the last straw.

UK graduates: have you been affected by marking boycotts?

We would like to hear from people who have left university without a degree classification or with ungraded work

A marking and assessment boycott has affected 145 universities, meaning that some students will leave university this summer without degree classifications, or with work ungraded. Students at the University of Edinburgh, for example, say they will be given an “empty piece of paper” when they graduate.

Are you leaving university without a degree classification or with work unmarked? How will this affect you, for instance when applying for jobs or other courses?

Florida Officials Had Repeated Contact With College Board Over African American Studies

Florida Officials Had Repeated Contact With College Board Over African American Studies

In January, demonstrators in Tallahassee protested policies restricting how issues of race are taught in Florida schools, including the decision by the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis to reject a proposed Advanced Placement course in African American studies.