The Bare Minimum: How college students survived the online semester
As the fall semester comes to a close, college students reveal changing relationships and how that affected their performance and mental health.
Packing only a toothbrush, sundresses and two pairs of pants, Julianne Page was ready to go at any time. As a student representative at Erasmus University College, she was involved in preparing her university’s lockdown procedures. In February, Page was enrolled in an epidemiology course where her class studied weekly news on the pandemic. “The rise of the coronavirus globally was a real-life case study. It was something I was really aware of,” she said.
The lockdown came the week of Page’s final exams. Her university quickly switched to online learning; however, students were still struggling with how to make their classes work in a virtual format. Page lightly packed her suitcase, figuring the lockdown would be short-lived. “I thought we’d be back within two weeks. I undermined the perceived seriousness of the situation,” Page said.
The pandemic along with the quarantine lockdown impacted the lives of many college students. Taking classes in different time zones, rethinking virtual learning and adapting to changes with families, friends and partners didn’t make the social isolation any easier.
Page and her boyfriend, Louis, moved back into her childhood home along with Page’s parents. “This was not the plan,” she insisted. Page opted to take her exams in her dad’s home office as opposed to her childhood bedroom, which was painted in the same hot pink colour she chose when she was 2 years old.
Not only was this a rapid change from her life a few weeks earlier, Page said family issues also made it difficult to focus on her work. “I felt at a loss for anything, for freedom, self-expression, and the routine I had built and come to appreciate,” she said. After not living with her parents for two years, the addition of her boyfriend didn’t help matters.
Coming from the Netherlands then staying for two days in Paris before arriving at her family country house, Page was terrified about giving COVID-19 to her parents. After a series of arguments, a rare occurrence between the Pages family, Page explained that the feelings of hurt lingered. “I was so mad at them. It was very, very intense,” she said.
Within a couple of days, Page was in survival mode, at least that’s how she describes it. “I felt anxious,” she said. “I was unable to focus energy on anything else than this tension between me and my family.” Being thrown into a new environment caused a rift between the four of them. Page dropped a class to give herself time to tackle the problem.
“The general feeling was that I and my boyfriend were intruding on their space and disrupting their habits,” she said. This was something they wished to avoid.
With veiled communication and passive-aggressive tendencies, Page withdrew from her family. “I was only present for social situations such as mealtimes,” she said. As a coping mechanism, Page dived deeper into “Dungeons & Dragons,” a game she played over Discord with her boyfriend and his family. This was seen as an intrusion of privacy on her parent’s side. They weren’t given the opportunity to walk around freely.
“It was a combination of bad things,” said Page, “I didn’t feel comfortable doing anything in my own house.”
As soon as the lockdown confinement ended on the 11th of May, Page and her boyfriend fled to her family’s secondary home in France. “When I heard the news, I immediately booked train tickets,” she said.
This was exactly the change Page needed. “We just spent the whole time breathing and focusing on the work we needed to do.” To unwind from the familial problems, Page took long bike rides, walks in the garden with her two dogs and took up “Stardew Valley,” a farming video game, as a way to cope.
Although things with her family are back to normal, Page is still thankful for the space. “I’m happy to just Facetime them for a little bit. I need that virtual distance,” she said.
According to Dr Leela Magavi, a regional medical director and psychiatrist, relationships are a source of motivation for individuals. She likens relationships to mirrors stating that they can help individuals recognize and embrace their strengths while concurrently pinpointing and working on their weaknesses.
Magavi recalls a renowned study, The BBC Loneliness Experiment, led by BBC and The University of Manchester that indicated 40% of individuals between the ages of 16 to 24 experience loneliness often or very often.
“Loneliness can impact longevity,” said Magavi, “The lack of in-person interactions can adversely affect an individuals’ mental health.” The physical presence of individuals can be very calming and without this, Magavi said the sense of normalcy is missing.
Based on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, our need for love and belonging is more important than self-esteem, freedom, recognition and self-actualization. Kathryn Ely, a licensed counsellor, said, “without connections to others, anything else good in our lives loses its flavour.”
Human touch is fundamental to our bonding, communication, and overall health. There is only so much communication that humans can do through speech. Losing touch as a form of communication, according to Ely, can make it more difficult for people to remember and feel the bond that strengthens their relationships and keeps them together.
“When we don’t get the physical connectedness we want and need, our mental health can easily decline,” Ely said. The switch to online-based interactions can leave people feeling disconnected as facial expressions and interruptions due to loss of connection makes having important conversations difficult.
Ely said a decline in student productivity should not be surprising due to the lack of fulfilment felt in this new COVID lifestyle. “We have to have our primary needs met first before we can move on to those that have lesser importance. So if we aren’t happy and satisfied in our relationships, we are not able to focus and do our best in academics or any other area of our lives,” she said.
For Maxine Chi, a sophomore Magazine Journalism major at Syracuse University, the switch to online learning held some challenges. As opposed to taking classes alongside her peers, due to travel restrictions, Chi attended classes mostly asynchronously this fall semester from her family house in Shenzhen, Guuangdong.
After spending her freshman year trying so hard to make friends and build a community, the drastic switch to online classes was a hard transition. “I missed my home, my family and everything around that, but it only lasted the first month,” she said.
In order to take classes, Chi had to change her sleeping patterns to fit with her new schedule. “I sleep from 3–4 am and wake up at 11 am. I’m completely socially isolated and I literally didn’t meet anyone new during this semester,” she said exasperated.
This was not the college experience Chi hoped for. Without in-person interactions, Chi had to drop one of her classes due to lack of efficiency. “Some professors didn’t adapt to online classes, and I wasn’t able to learn the same way over Zoom,” she said.
Moving away to boarding school at the age of 13, Chi has not lived with her parents for more than 5 years. “I’ve had fights with my parents over clothing, self-expression and differences in opinion during this quarantine,” she said crediting the generational gap.
Although being back at home allowed Chi to save over $20,000 on tuition and housing costs if, given the chance, she would rather be in-person. “I wish I was back in Syracuse. College is meant to be an experience and right now, I feel like I’ve lost all of it. I’m at an age where I want to have fun, not living the middle-aged life with my parents,” she said.
With the life that students once had a distant memory, talks of taking the semester off are becoming more real. “I think a semester off with a delayed graduation is better than where I am right now,” said Chi.
The pandemic has brought a lot of changes, but not all of them have been negative. For Rehan Botejue, a former student at Syracuse University, online classes gave him an opportunity to graduate. Already working at a digital event ticketing company in Karachi, Pakistan for a year and a half now, Botejue said the option of online classes “was the perfect opportunity to actually be in this space, continue working and finish up my degree.”
However, just like everyone else, COVID-19 brought challenges as well. “I’m somebody who enjoyed going to the gym, going out with friends, and eating at restaurants, I feel a lot more confined now,” he said.
Botejue said he was only able to achieve the bare minimum in his classes.“I had to survive first,” he said. Reflecting on the semester, Botejue believes if he had more than two classes, he’s not sure if he would have continued with the semester.
There’s a pressure according to Botejue to overachieve now more than ever. “At the beginning of the quarantine, there was a lull where people didn’t do work. Now people are at home grinding,” he said feeling like he hadn’t actualized his potential in that time.
“My whole existence has changed but it doesn’t feel strange anymore, it’s the new normal,” said Botejue.
