Dear Aston University,

We are petitioning upon the surge in Covid cases thanks to the new Omicron virus. Many students don’t feel safe which has been brought to our attention by several complaints and problems that have been voiced and we don’t feel the university is doing enough to ensure our safety whilst also allowing us to achieve a good degree, hence why this petition. Rather it seems the university is making us choose between our health/safety or achieving a degree. Whether that be people not wearing masks, mixing in large crowds, and being crammed into exam halls, etc and all this is occurring on campus as cases continue to surge. 

I hope you can take time to reflect upon this petition and the problem us students are facing and can come up with an adequate solution that ensures student safety as well as allowing us all to achieve our dream degrees.

In no way is this a dig at the university, rather we believe Aston to be a brilliant university and we’ve loved the time we’ve been able to spend at university despite the time being limited, I just wanted to voice the concerns of many students and make sure you were aware of problems we students are facing and hopefully you can do the right thing.

Many universities have already taken action and changed their campus-based exams to online (University Of Birmingham and Loughborough etc.) and we believe you should follow suit. It’s unfair to the students and their loved ones. Having to pick between a degree and keeping our loved ones safe should never have to be a choice. We should be able to do both freely without worry.

Kind regards and thanks for reading.