Along with Strava and our beloved billionaires, Breakout Rooms are the real winners of the pandemic.
Seminar leaders love them: they lock you away for twenty minutes whilst they have a cup of tea and watch an episode of Friends. Students hate them: brief discussion of the seminar topic soon gives way to small talk which in turn gives way to frosty silence. Yet news emerged this morning which has rocked the virtual conferencing world.
The Whip spoke to 2nd year History student, Casey Closed who achieved the unfathomable – breaking out of a breakout room.
“I was in a seminar learning about the history of history books and I thought, ‘crikey, this is shit.’ No one was talking, no cameras on. It was painstakingly painful. The final straw came when we were put into Breakout Rooms for 25 minutes. Now that’s just inhumane! I had to get out of there. The red cross in the corner of the screen looked so god damn alluring, that I just couldn’t resist. I pressed it and bang – I’d broken out.”
This revelation is sure to be a game changer for students who now enter Breakout Rooms, knowing that salvation from their cyber prison is just a crimson click away.
The virtual ball is back in the seminar leaders’ virtual court, how will they respond? Only time will tell, but one thing is for sure: discussion will not be facilitated.