Benefits of Coworking Spaces for Students
Barcelona is one one the world’s best places for students. As a matter of fact, it is a major destination in Europe, with great universities, affordable cost of living, fantastic weather, and a very vibrant cultural life. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has completely transformed student life. And due to this, most classes switched to an online format. E-learning has become the new solution for education formation.
The problem for students is the same as for workers forced to work from home. A good solution for the sanitary emergency. However, is it really sustainable? No. Working or studying from home is not sustainable as soon as it is not a choice anymore. The eLearning format has many benefits, but it also comes along with the problems of doing it from home.
Indeed, the lack of interactions with classmates, socialising and collaborating, and the inequalities in terms of access to tech, material, and infrastructures have created a greater precarity in the educational world. This is why coworking spaces have become an exciting solution for remote students.
The real impact of the pandemic on student life
First of all, the Covid-19 pandemic completely transformed the concept of student life. Not only in Barcelona but in the whole world. It is important to remember that these years (20’s) are maybe the most important in our lives. You are growing and developing yourself as a young adult. Making experiences, taking responsibilities, networking and experiencing life, building yourself and shaping the future. But, universities switched most of their courses online to limit the risk of spreading the virus in the classrooms. As a result, students were forced to start studying remotely, meaning from home.
Even if studying remotely has proven to be a good solution regarding the pandemic, it has also generated many problems for students. On the one side, the inequality of access to adequate resources and infrastructures, and on the other side, the increase in mental health problems due to the lack of socialisation.
The negative impact of being forced to study remotely:
- The loss of face to face tutorship and feedback
- The lack of social interactions, social isolation
- The loss of access to spaces dedicated to collaboration
- The loss of an important networking environment
- The problems derived from the loss of access to a proper work environment (furniture, computer, good internet connection, quiet spaces)
- eLearning requires a strong self-motivation
- The loss of practical classes in specific disciplines
The main benefits of coworking spaces for students
Productivity and Professionalism
Generally, students live in shared accommodations or at their family home. They usually study from libraries or coffee shops. But the problem is that these places are often busy and noisy with unreliable Wi-Fi connections. They are not always the best places to focus and be productive. Then, with the pandemic, things got worse. Coffee shops and libraries are closed or restricted. The situation became very complicated for students to meet, exchange and collaborate.
Coworking spaces are numerous in Barcelona, and they are great flexible resources:
- Professional and creative working environment to separate work or study from home
- Great variety of workstations and ergonomic office furniture
- Secured spaces
- Flexible time-table, some coworking spaces are even open 24/7
- Meeting rooms
- Collaborative spaces for team projects
- Phone booths and conference rooms for online classes
- High-speed Internet, printers and scanners
- Tea, coffee and water generally included
The classrooms of the future maybe are coworking spaces. In addition to offering a great work environment and inspiring spaces, coworkings are also home to incredible professional communities. More than just workspaces, they are powerful places of socialisation and networking that can be more than beneficial for students and future entrepreneurs.
Community and Networking
The community of coworking spaces is mainly composed of startups and freelancers. Businesspeople who are working remotely, developing projects in many different sectors such as tech, education, consulting, and marketing. All those entrepreneurs have one thing in common: networking. Indeed, freelancers are used to working remotely and know that coworking spaces are places where it is easy to connect with other professionals on different levels:
1 – To grow their company through collaboration, partnerships and talent acquisition
2 – To find potential clients
3 – To make new friends and connect with great people, social connections
Coworking spaces became quite the experts in creating that synergy of exchanges and collaborations. They organise and host many events to gather their community and open new networking opportunities. You can check out our agenda to have a better idea. Students working from these collaborative environments will have the chance to interact directly with entrepreneurs and professionals from different industries with potential knowledge to share or opportunities to offer. Also, sharing a space with other coworkers or classmates will simply be good for their mental well being.
Who can work from coworking spaces?
Who could or should join a coworking space. Here the students who are concerned are mostly university students and eLearners in general. Coworking spaces offer flexible memberships. You can work there for a day, for a month, only in the morning or in the afternoon. You will most probably find the plan that fits you the best.
- Book a space to work on your thesis, to write and investigate
- Use a meeting room for the defence of your thesis
- Enjoy the coworking space to follow your online classes
- Bring a group for collaborative projects
- Find a community and avoid social isolation
- Avoid distraction from home
- Connect with professionals
Benefits of being part of a student community
Students participating in international exchanges have so many questions and things to manage next to their studies: language barrier, accommodation, opening a bank account, and social life. You can find many online communities that will help you, providing administrative information and sharing good deals in the city. You can check out Facebook groups such as Erasmus Barcelona for general student life inquiries or Barcelona Expats.
SRF – Student Room Flat
This year, we got to know Student Room Flat, an online booking platform that helps thousands of international students and interns find their accommodation every year. They are operating in more than 16 locations in Europe. And, they are now expanding their network in Barcelona along with five other cities in Spain.
A team of incredible young entrepreneurs with their own previous international experiences working to give you the support they wished they had during their journey! Passionate about building authentic community experiences that make their international tenants welcome and integrated into their new destination cities.
They are proud of offering very cool shared flats and studios. In addition, they also partnered with co-living and coworking spaces in Barcelona to adapt to all their tenant’s lifestyles and tastes.
The advantages:
- Simplify administrative tasks
- Access to a great selection of accommodation and workspaces
- Integrate a dynamic student community, access events, Meetups
- Benefits from special student discounts in Barcelona with SRF card
A discount for SRF community at La Vaca
The members of the Student Room Flat community have access to the SRF card. A platform where they can access exclusive discounts in the city. For example, you can find offers for bars, restaurants, spectacles and also coworking spaces.
Students are the ones that will shape the future—young talents and creative minds that we are happy to welcome at la Vaca. We invite them to work from a unique space to connect with our incredible community of startups and entrepreneurs. You can find more about the special discount for the SRF community.
Finally, shared spaces are the future of offices, and maybe they will also become the new classrooms for students studying remotely. School is supposedly preparing young talents, and young entrepreneurs for the reality of the labour world and its future is digital. As a result, students in eLearning working from shared spaces will be ready to integrate into the professional world. However, the importance of social connections is incontestable. People need spaces to connect and interact physically. It is beneficial for productivity and mental health.
We hope to see you soon at La Vaca!
