Coronavirus outbreak changed people’s lives globally. Social distancing has been practiced almost worldwide. Most essential activities such as working and studying have been relocated from publicly available places to private homes.
One of the biggest groups of people from around the world, who have to adapt to new reality are students. Attending lectures, doing assignments, looking for literature now has to be done online.
Three students: Laura Benedicto, Marie Dunker and Tommy Kausland from three different countries: Spain, Germany and Norway shared their experience on how it is to be a student in quarantine and what kind of changes a new lifestyle has brought.
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Laura Benedicto, 20, Spain
1. How has coronavirus affected your studies?
At first, universities in Spain were supposed to be closed from march 16th until April 22nd, but the situation was getting worse and worse so we weren’t able to go back and they decided to close until the next year. I have my exams online and some of them have turned into essays. My teachers upload some pdfs with information to help us and in some faculties they are receiving class via zoom.
2. How accessible and feasible is for you doing assignments from home?
I don’t have a lot of technical problems as other students may have. I have connection and computers to work with and the government has invested money to make sure that students with economic difficulties can also have these things. I have some issues providing myself with bibliography to write my essays and study for my exams, but teachers are being really sympathetic with that.
3. Did you learn anything new or find a new hobby while being in quarantine?
I’ve learnt to hear my inner self and invest time in myself – sometimes we are just so focused on our routine that we do not know who we are anymore. Since the quarantine started I have been practicing yoga everyday (something that before I could only do once per week) and have also started contemporary dance classes.
4. What do you think, how these changes will affect your life or career choices in future?
A lot of people in Spain are freaking out about the situation after these 62 days at home, saying that we will not even go back to universities and that online classes and work are going to stay for a long time. I really don’t know… I want to believe that things will go back to normality after a while. Maybe, we have learnt that it is not necessary to work in an office for such a long time and that we need to take more care of ourselves, and be more empathetic with each other. 62 days closed inside a home makes you think a lot and you realize how you were abandoning yourself and your inner wishes. I really don’t think that this semester online will affect my future career, but the change of my mindset will! I’ll try to take those thoughts with me as long as I can.
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Marie Dunker, 21, Germany
1. How has coronavirus affected your studies?
First of all, my semester started delayed. It usually begins in April, but this year it was postponed to May. Luckily, I had an internship before, which just ended a bit earlier than planned. Others were not as fortunate; they had remaining lessons and exams cancelled and postponed, risking that they could not get into the following course.
Now, most classes are online, which means relaxed working from the home desk, but on the other side, also less contact with fellow students and more screen time. In my opinion, lots of teachers additionally have no feeling for an appropriate workload. Like that, I and many others suddenly have more to do than before – reading and writing just automatically takes more time than discussing topics in class. Also, the tests and exams, as well as the practical works required in some studies such as pharmacy or medicine, have to be adapted.
Some students are having financial issues or fearing they won’t be able to cope with the new situation while having children at home, for example. Therefore, there was a petition to make the current semester a “solidary semester” (not counting for the total time of studies), which sadly didn’t get through. I am not as affected, but I know others that are, so I wanted to name that issue too.
2. How accessible and feasible is for you doing assignments from home?
My university is offering a VPN client, which makes lots of online literature available. Also, our library has a big offer of e-books and online magazines and is continuously scanning more to make it accessible online. Next over, they offer a pick-up service for physical mediums.
The university established a cloud and option for conferences, as well as a technical support team for both teachers and students, to make online classes as easy to handle as possible. I have been doing assignments from home quite often during my studies already, so it is not such a significant change for me.
3. Did you learn anything new or find a new hobby while being in quarantine?
I did not start on something new, but I had the chance to continue on the hobbies I had before studies, which were on a break since then. I have the feeling I got more experienced and skilled in these while spending more time at once on them. I also used a lot of the time for language-learning, preparing intensively for studies and helping out my family.
4. What do you think, how these changes will affect your life or career choices in future?
I am afraid I will have problems starting into work life. Usually, I would write my Bachelor thesis this summer and start looking for a job in autumn. However, with the issues many companies are facing right now, I guess they won’t be easy on hiring freshly finished students that have just been sitting at home for the last months. Moreover, I might need to overthink my career choice. I was planning to get into the book publishing business, but this field has been “attacked” severely, just as many others.
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Tommy Kausland, 28, Norway
1. How has coronavirus affected your studies?
Yes, quite the change. Now we have lectures from zoom. Not a fan, but what can you do?! In these weeks (first 3 weeks of May) we have an internship period. So, we work from home, from all over the country, try the best we can, but limited.
2. How accessible and feasible is for you doing assignments from home?
I'm not gonna lie, I'm very easily distracted, especially with a ps4, movies, books etc. And most of all have to be my own boss or motivator if you will.
3. Did you learn anything new or find a new hobby while being in quarantine?
I really got back into writing, a story I started writing just to impress someone special, but it evolved beyond that and coming together. I love it, and I went back into drawing and gaming! So, that has been amazing I must say.
4. What do you think, how these changes will affect your life or career choices in future?
No, I just wanna write, really, try everything, when it comes to creative mediums. So, yes maybe in a way I don't need to be a journalist, but i can do that too if that makes sense.
Number of infected by Coronavirus has reached more than 11 million people, from which little more than half a million people have already died and more than 6.9 million people all over the world have been recovered.
According to worldometers.info statistics, the situation in Europe is stabilizing and is getting better, but the possibility of the ‘second wave’ stays as a threat and consequently, students are continuing studying distantly.