{"id":8405,"date":"2022-04-18T20:24:53","date_gmt":"2022-04-18T10:24:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecitizen.org.au\/?post_type=article&p=8405"},"modified":"2022-12-06T15:20:47","modified_gmt":"2022-12-06T04:20:47","slug":"a-new-year-offers-new-hope-for-students-facing-covid-challenges","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/www.thecitizen.org.au\/articles\/a-new-year-offers-new-hope-for-students-facing-covid-challenges","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting on the challenges of remote learning"},"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"acf":{"category":[{"ID":8612,"post_author":"15","post_date":"2022-05-23 15:54:31","post_date_gmt":"2022-05-23 05:54:31","post_content":"","post_title":"Culture","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"culture","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2022-05-23 15:54:31","post_modified_gmt":"2022-05-23 05:54:31","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.thecitizen.org.au\/?post_type=category&p=8612","menu_order":0,"post_type":"category","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":951,"post_author":"11","post_date":"2018-02-13 16:32:29","post_date_gmt":"2018-02-13 05:32:29","post_content":"","post_title":"Blog","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"blog","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2018-02-13 16:32:29","post_modified_gmt":"2018-02-13 05:32:29","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/localhost:3000\/categories\/blog\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"category","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":955,"post_author":"11","post_date":"2018-02-13 16:32:33","post_date_gmt":"2018-02-13 05:32:33","post_content":"","post_title":"China","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"china","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2018-02-13 16:32:33","post_modified_gmt":"2018-02-13 05:32:33","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/localhost:3000\/categories\/china\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"category","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"},{"ID":963,"post_author":"11","post_date":"2018-02-13 16:32:41","post_date_gmt":"2018-02-13 05:32:41","post_content":"","post_title":"Education","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"education","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2018-02-13 16:32:41","post_modified_gmt":"2018-02-13 05:32:41","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"http:\/\/localhost:3000\/categories\/education\/","menu_order":0,"post_type":"category","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"theme":[{"ID":8096,"post_author":"13","post_date":"2022-03-22 12:18:32","post_date_gmt":"2022-03-22 01:18:32","post_content":"","post_title":"The Global Citizen","post_excerpt":"","post_status":"publish","comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","post_password":"","post_name":"the-global-citizen","to_ping":"","pinged":"","post_modified":"2022-05-24 09:39:42","post_modified_gmt":"2022-05-23 23:39:42","post_content_filtered":"","post_parent":0,"guid":"https:\/\/www.thecitizen.org.au\/?post_type=theme&p=8096","menu_order":0,"post_type":"theme","post_mime_type":"","comment_count":"0","filter":"raw"}],"type":"article","promo_image":"https:\/\/the-citizen-web-assets-us.s3.amazonaws.com\/uploads\/2022\/04\/18194018\/photo-1603501266047-f4a2f093503b.jpeg","promo_image_credit":"","intro":"

As vaccination numbers globally continue to rise and despite waves of new COVID-19 variants, many students at institutions around the world, including the University of Melbourne, are returning to campus in 2022. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Our reporters spoke to a group of international students and asked them to reflect on the challenges of two years of online learning and the ups and downs of returning to face-to-face classes.<\/strong><\/p>\n","body":"

[A]t the end of 2022, Nadine Garibli, then 22, had been navigating her college experience via Zoom calls and pre-recorded lectures for the past year and a half. Since her move to Imperial College London from the University of Durham in the United Kingdom, she prayed that the last few months of her education would return to normal, but she didn\u2019t have high hopes.<\/p>\n

“It’s a ghost of what it used to be, and I feel like I’ve missed out on a big chunk of university.”<\/p>\n

She wasn\u2019t alone in her experience.<\/p>\n

When the COVID-19 pandemic trickled into every aspect of people’s lives in 2020, everything came to a standstill. Hundreds of millions of people were forced to compromise. Students, in particular, were faced with the uncertainty of how their education would change and had to settle for a college experience they probably hadn’t anticipated.<\/p>\n

A Socially Distanced Social Life<\/h2>\n

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“Living alone and studying online was quite difficult and felt quite isolating, which can take a toll on your mental health,” explained Nadine when asked what her experience was like living in her college town but studying from home.<\/p>\n

In some ways Nadine was lucky, having the small luxury of being near her university. However, international students stuck overseas had no chance to interact with classmates and teachers, which led to many reporting heightened feelings of isolation and anxiety.<\/p>\n

A 2021 survey conducted by the Council of International Students of Australia (CISA) on students stranded abroad found that of the 607 participants, about 93 per cent of the participants\u2019 mental health was affected by studying online in their home country.<\/p>\n

Read the survey here: https:\/\/cisa.edu.au\/research\/<\/a><\/p>\n

More than two-thirds of the respondents believed they had depression or anxiety because they did not know when they could return to their campuses and feel a sense of normalcy.<\/p>\n

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Online classes and online socialising. Photo: Vanessa Garcia via Pexels<\/p><\/div>\n

Even though Nadine wasn\u2019t stuck overseas, she still felt the effects of decreased human contact. She admits she lost focus during online classes and found it difficult to motivate herself from time to time but was always able to get herself back on track. It\u2019s only now that she \u201ccan acknowledge it was a lot harder” than she thought at the time.<\/p>\n