my life during pandemic as a student essay

What Life Was Like for Students in the Pandemic Year

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In this video, Navajo student Miles Johnson shares how he experienced the stress and anxiety of schools shutting down last year. Miles’ teacher shared his experience and those of her other students in a recent piece for Education Week. In these short essays below, teacher Claire Marie Grogan’s 11th grade students at Oceanside High School on Long Island, N.Y., describe their pandemic experiences. Their writings have been slightly edited for clarity. Read Grogan’s essay .

“Hours Staring at Tiny Boxes on the Screen”

By Kimberly Polacco, 16

I stare at my blank computer screen, trying to find the motivation to turn it on, but my finger flinches every time it hovers near the button. I instead open my curtains. It is raining outside, but it does not matter, I will not be going out there for the rest of the day. The sound of pounding raindrops contributes to my headache enough to make me turn on my computer in hopes that it will give me something to drown out the noise. But as soon as I open it up, I feel the weight of the world crash upon my shoulders.

Each 42-minute period drags on by. I spend hours upon hours staring at tiny boxes on a screen, one of which my exhausted face occupies, and attempt to retain concepts that have been presented to me through this device. By the time I have the freedom of pressing the “leave” button on my last Google Meet of the day, my eyes are heavy and my legs feel like mush from having not left my bed since I woke up.

Tomorrow arrives, except this time here I am inside of a school building, interacting with my first period teacher face to face. We talk about our favorite movies and TV shows to stream as other kids pile into the classroom. With each passing period I accumulate more and more of these tiny meaningless conversations everywhere I go with both teachers and students. They may not seem like much, but to me they are everything because I know that the next time I am expected to report to school, I will be trapped in the bubble of my room counting down the hours until I can sit down in my freshly sanitized wooden desk again.

“My Only Parent Essentially on Her Death Bed”

By Nick Ingargiola, 16

My mom had COVID-19 for ten weeks. She got sick during the first month school buildings were shut. The difficulty of navigating an online classroom was already overwhelming, and when mixed with my only parent essentially on her death bed, it made it unbearable. Focusing on schoolwork was impossible, and watching my mother struggle to lift up her arm broke my heart.

My mom has been through her fair share of diseases from pancreatic cancer to seizures and even as far as a stroke that paralyzed her entire left side. It is safe to say she has been through a lot. The craziest part is you would never know it. She is the strongest and most positive person I’ve ever met. COVID hit her hard. Although I have watched her go through life and death multiple times, I have never seen her so physically and mentally drained.

I initially was overjoyed to complete my school year in the comfort of my own home, but once my mom got sick, I couldn’t handle it. No one knows what it’s like to pretend like everything is OK until they are forced to. I would wake up at 8 after staying up until 5 in the morning pondering the possibility of losing my mother. She was all I had. I was forced to turn my camera on and float in the fake reality of being fine although I wasn’t. The teachers tried to keep the class engaged by obligating the students to participate. This was dreadful. I didn’t want to talk. I had to hide the distress in my voice. If only the teachers understood what I was going through. I was hesitant because I didn’t want everyone to know that the virus that was infecting and killing millions was knocking on my front door.

After my online classes, I was required to finish an immense amount of homework while simultaneously hiding my sadness so that my mom wouldn’t worry about me. She was already going through a lot. There was no reason to add me to her list of worries. I wasn’t even able to give her a hug. All I could do was watch.

“The Way of Staying Sane”

By Lynda Feustel, 16

Entering year two of the pandemic is strange. It barely seems a day since last March, but it also seems like a lifetime. As an only child and introvert, shutting down my world was initially simple and relatively easy. My friends and I had been super busy with the school play, and while I was sad about it being canceled, I was struggling a lot during that show and desperately needed some time off.

As March turned to April, virtual school began, and being alone really set in. I missed my friends and us being together. The isolation felt real with just my parents and me, even as we spent time together. My friends and I began meeting on Facetime every night to watch TV and just be together in some way. We laughed at insane jokes we made and had homework and therapy sessions over Facetime and grew closer through digital and literal walls.

The summer passed with in-person events together, and the virus faded into the background for a little while. We went to the track and the beach and hung out in people’s backyards.

Then school came for us in a more nasty way than usual. In hybrid school we were separated. People had jobs, sports, activities, and quarantines. Teachers piled on work, and the virus grew more present again. The group text put out hundreds of messages a day while the Facetimes came to a grinding halt, and meeting in person as a group became more of a rarity. Being together on video and in person was the way of staying sane.

In a way I am in a similar place to last year, working and looking for some change as we enter the second year of this mess.

“In History Class, Reports of Heightening Cases”

By Vivian Rose, 16

I remember the moment my freshman year English teacher told me about the young writers’ conference at Bread Loaf during my sophomore year. At first, I didn’t want to apply, the deadline had passed, but for some strange reason, the directors of the program extended it another week. It felt like it was meant to be. It was in Vermont in the last week of May when the flowers have awakened and the sun is warm.

I submitted my work, and two weeks later I got an email of my acceptance. I screamed at the top of my lungs in the empty house; everyone was out, so I was left alone to celebrate my small victory. It was rare for them to admit sophomores. Usually they accept submissions only from juniors and seniors.

That was the first week of February 2020. All of a sudden, there was some talk about this strange virus coming from China. We thought nothing of it. Every night, I would fall asleep smiling, knowing that I would be able to go to the exact conference that Robert Frost attended for 42 years.

Then, as if overnight, it seemed the virus had swung its hand and had gripped parts of the country. Every newscast was about the disease. Every day in history, we would look at the reports of heightening cases and joke around that this could never become a threat as big as Dr. Fauci was proposing. Then, March 13th came around--it was the last day before the world seemed to shut down. Just like that, Bread Loaf would vanish from my grasp.

“One Day Every Day Won’t Be As Terrible”

By Nick Wollweber, 17

COVID created personal problems for everyone, some more serious than others, but everyone had a struggle.

As the COVID lock-down took hold, the main thing weighing on my mind was my oldest brother, Joe, who passed away in January 2019 unexpectedly in his sleep. Losing my brother was a complete gut punch and reality check for me at 14 and 15 years old. 2019 was a year of struggle, darkness, sadness, frustration. I didn’t want to learn after my brother had passed, but I had to in order to move forward and find my new normal.

Routine and always having things to do and places to go is what let me cope in the year after Joe died. Then COVID came and gave me the option to let up and let down my guard. I struggled with not wanting to take care of personal hygiene. That was the beginning of an underlying mental problem where I wouldn’t do things that were necessary for everyday life.

My “coping routine” that got me through every day and week the year before was gone. COVID wasn’t beneficial to me, but it did bring out the true nature of my mental struggles and put a name to it. Since COVID, I have been diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. I began taking antidepressants and going to therapy a lot more.

COVID made me realize that I’m not happy with who I am and that I needed to change. I’m still not happy with who I am. I struggle every day, but I am working towards a goal that one day every day won’t be as terrible.

Coverage of social and emotional learning is supported in part by a grant from the NoVo Foundation, at www.novofoundation.org . Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage. A version of this article appeared in the March 31, 2021 edition of Education Week as What Life Was Like for Students in the Pandemic Year

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One Student's Perspective on Life During a Pandemic

• Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
• Ethics Resources
• Ethics Spotlight
• COVID-19: Ethics, Health and Moving Forward

The pandemic and resulting shelter-in-place restrictions are affecting everyone in different ways. Tiana Nguyen, shares both the pros and cons of her experience as a student at Santa Clara University.

person sitting at table with open laptop, notebook and pen

Tiana Nguyen ‘21 is a Hackworth Fellow at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. She is majoring in Computer Science, and is the vice president of Santa Clara University’s Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) chapter .

The world has slowed down, but stress has begun to ramp up.

In the beginning of quarantine, as the world slowed down, I could finally take some time to relax, watch some shows, learn to be a better cook and baker, and be more active in my extracurriculars. I have a lot of things to be thankful for. I especially appreciate that I’m able to live in a comfortable house and have gotten the opportunity to spend more time with my family. This has actually been the first time in years in which we’re all able to even eat meals together every single day. Even when my brother and I were young, my parents would be at work and sometimes come home late, so we didn’t always eat meals together. In the beginning of the quarantine I remember my family talking about how nice it was to finally have meals together, and my brother joking, “it only took a pandemic to bring us all together,” which I laughed about at the time (but it’s the truth).

Soon enough, we’ll all be back to going to different places and we’ll be separated once again. So I’m thankful for my living situation right now. As for my friends, even though we’re apart, I do still feel like I can be in touch with them through video chat—maybe sometimes even more in touch than before. I think a lot of people just have a little more time for others right now.

Although there are still a lot of things to be thankful for, stress has slowly taken over, and work has been overwhelming. I’ve always been a person who usually enjoys going to classes, taking on more work than I have to, and being active in general. But lately I’ve felt swamped with the amount of work given, to the point that my days have blurred into online assignments, Zoom classes, and countless meetings, with a touch of baking sweets and aimless searching on Youtube.

The pass/no pass option for classes continues to stare at me, but I look past it every time to use this quarter as an opportunity to boost my grades. I've tried to make sense of this type of overwhelming feeling that I’ve never really felt before. Is it because I’m working harder and putting in more effort into my schoolwork with all the spare time I now have? Is it because I’m not having as much interaction with other people as I do at school? Or is it because my classes this quarter are just supposed to be this much harder? I honestly don’t know; it might not even be any of those. What I do know though, is that I have to continue work and push through this feeling.

This quarter I have two synchronous and two asynchronous classes, which each have pros and cons. Originally, I thought I wanted all my classes to be synchronous, since that everyday interaction with my professor and classmates is valuable to me. However, as I experienced these asynchronous classes, I’ve realized that it can be nice to watch a lecture on my own time because it even allows me to pause the video to give me extra time for taking notes. This has made me pay more attention during lectures and take note of small details that I might have missed otherwise. Furthermore, I do realize that synchronous classes can also be a burden for those abroad who have to wake up in the middle of the night just to attend a class. I feel that it’s especially unfortunate when professors want students to attend but don’t make attendance mandatory for this reason; I find that most abroad students attend anyway, driven by the worry they’ll be missing out on something.

I do still find synchronous classes amazing though, especially for discussion-based courses. I feel in touch with other students from my classes whom I wouldn’t otherwise talk to or regularly reach out to. Since Santa Clara University is a small school, it is especially easy to interact with one another during classes on Zoom, and I even sometimes find it less intimidating to participate during class through Zoom than in person. I’m honestly not the type to participate in class, but this quarter I found myself participating in some classes more than usual. The breakout rooms also create more interaction, since we’re assigned to random classmates, instead of whomever we’re sitting closest to in an in-person class—though I admit breakout rooms can sometimes be awkward.

Something that I find beneficial in both synchronous and asynchronous classes is that professors post a lecture recording that I can always refer to whenever I want. I found this especially helpful when I studied for my midterms this quarter; it’s nice to have a recording to look back upon in case I missed something during a lecture.

Overall, life during these times is substantially different from anything most of us have ever experienced, and at times it can be extremely overwhelming and stressful—especially in terms of school for me. Online classes don’t provide the same environment and interactions as in-person classes and are by far not as enjoyable. But at the end of the day, I know that in every circumstance there is always something to be thankful for, and I’m appreciative for my situation right now. While the world has slowed down and my stress has ramped up, I’m slowly beginning to adjust to it.

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Home > History Community Special Collections > Remembering COVID-19 Community Archive > Community Reflections > 21

Community Reflections

My life experience during the covid-19 pandemic.

Melissa Blanco Follow

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Undergraduate, Class of 2024

My content explains what my life was like during the last seven months of the Covid-19 pandemic and how it affected my life both positively and negatively. It also explains what it was like when I graduated from High School and how I want the future generations to remember the Class of 2020.

Class assignment, Western Civilization (Dr. Marino).

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Blanco, Melissa, "My Life Experience During the Covid-19 Pandemic" (2020). Community Reflections . 21. https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/covid19-reflections/21

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Home — Essay Samples — Nursing & Health — Covid 19 — My Experience during the COVID-19 Pandemic

My Experience During The Covid-19 Pandemic

• Categories: Covid 19

About this sample

Words: 440 |

Published: Jan 30, 2024

Words: 440 | Page: 1 | 3 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, physical impact, mental and emotional impact, social impact.

• World Health Organization. (2021). Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard. https://covid19.who.int/
• American Psychiatric Association. (2020). Mental health and COVID-19. https://www.psychiatry.org/news-room/apa-blogs/apa-blog/2020/03/mental-health-and-covid-19
• The New York Times. (2020). Coping with Coronavirus Anxiety. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/well/family/coronavirus-anxiety-mental-health.html

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My Experience as a College Student During COVID-19

Students gather at Fordham University before having to leave campus due to the coronavirus outbreak. | Source: Anna Kuyat

BY: Anna Kuyat

Anna Kuyat is a junior at Fordham University studying English and Visual Arts. She is a Spring 2020 intern for Chasing the Dream.

If the coronavirus outbreak has taught me anything, it is how very lucky I am. I began my junior year of college in Copenhagen, Denmark where I was able to have an incredible semester abroad. A few months into the second semester of my junior year, I was settling back into my New York City school lifestyle: grabbing a coffee with a few friends at Prince Coffee House; taking the D train to Columbus Circle for shopping or to Hamilton Heights to meet my brother for a bite at Harlem Public; walking along Arthur Ave; “enjoying” a class in Irish and British Medieval Literature; comparing photos of my study abroad experience with online friends who were currently studying in Copenhagen or London or Granada. 

Anna with her friends at Prince Coffee House before the pandemic. | Source: Anna Kuyat

And then seemingly without warning, we were all sent packing. One morning I woke up in the Bronx and that night, went to bed back home in Philly with just a duffel bag full of my belongings. My first two thoughts were mixtures of empathetic concern and selfish relief— “I’m glad I did my study abroad in the fall” and “It must be really tough to be a college senior this year.” When a university closes shop, you know things are serious. And they were, it was —this invisible, protein-crowned virus called COVID-19. 

Having no experience with pandemics, I could be forgiven for not thinking in terms of worst case scenarios. Certain things are permanent fixtures—the gym, the coffee shop, the train, the innumerable people who frequent them with me. This is a city that never sleeps. When I woke up at my house in southeastern Pennsylvania, it all disappeared— no coffee shop, no gym, no people. And then, I finally did get the message, and for the first time became afraid. My father, then my mother became infected and quarantined themselves in a separate portion of our not very large three bedroom home. I barely left the house because of something called “shelter in place.” I had to stay away from my high school pals because of something called “social distancing.” I came face to face with my own sense of entitlement— I haven’t gone through anything, and even this is not anything compared with those who are out of work or those who are forced to work meeting needs and saving lives.

Anna’s brother’s in his apartment in Hamilton Heights, New York City.  | Source: Anna Kuyat

I wasn’t really ready for online classes. I had taken for granted how significant the human interaction was, even from that student who seemed compelled to man-splain two or three times per class, or the perky one who can’t stop her joyous mouth from answering another question. They mattered. They helped to define me— I am the non- perky one. I needed them all. Like most people, I also found being secluded at home very difficult. At school, I was in constant motion in search of a new museum or cafe or another place in which to do my school work— my dorm, true to its etymology, was simply a spot to sleep in. And while NYC gave me numerous spurts of inspiration for writing yet another essay, my suburban Philadelphia neighborhood lacked anything close to a Mt. Parnassus. In fact, I mostly felt tired and anesthetized by a nondescript boredom.

But there was something oddly uplifting in knowing that there were only three things happening in a world known for its hyperkinetic abuse of time— being sick, keeping from being sick, and helping those who are sick. Everyone was all about one thing. Nothing else mattered. And we were all together in a new abridged version of living. And I found myself drifting out of myself to wonder about those who were being sick and serving the sick while I had the opportunity to do nothing. Some of my friends were in families that now lacked an income since neither parent’s job afforded the ability to work from home. The mother of another friend was a nurse who had worked 16 hours per day, taking care of infected patients, and having no interaction at home with her daughter. This disease was destructive in more ways than one, but only one way could be treated at a time.

Both of Anna’s parents were infected with COVID-19. | Source: Anna Kuyat

As a healthy citizen of an advanced nation, I felt guilty that we were not in position to provide financial assistance to the unemployed or the small business owners, to distribute PPE or ventilators to every city and state, or to have in place the plan and the equipment for quick reliable nationwide testing. I worried about my parents since their doctors didn’t know the variety of symptoms to expect or what steps to make them more comfortable except to take Tylenol. They could die. For really the first time in my life, death was nearby, an uninvited houseguest. At least they were able to get tested thanks to a drive-thru clinic in one of the parking lots of Citizen Bank Park where the Phillies may play baseball this season. A week after they were tested, this clinic ran out of funding and closed down. 

When they beat the virus, I was able to get myself into a routine to avoid being lost in a land without dates and times. This helped with my focus and mental health. Feeling stuck and trapped is a lot to handle. Feeling that one is sinking in an achronicity is asking too much. Measuring time in terms of tasks and rituals gives shape to my day, and directs me toward specifics– facetiming friends, writing, music, dog-walking, meditating, being grateful. A time to be grateful, to be grateful for…nothing beyond this moment. Why would I have to carve out a slot for this? Because I was too busy before, too caught up staring into the kaleidoscope, to take note of many of the forms– their width, their breadth, their identities. 

Anna’s parents are recovering from COVID-19 in their Pennsylvania home. | Source: Anna Kuyat

Yes, I still find myself worrying about next year– my senior year– since it is still uncertain whether school will open on campus in the fall. I also think about how I will be applying for jobs very soon, in less than a year. It is disheartening, dispiriting, to know that I may be entering the job market during an economic depression. Finding a job after college and transitioning to “full-on adulthood” is stressful enough. 

But then I breathe. I know enough history to be able to identify no more than two times during the previous century when crisis provoked positive change– FDR’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society. Perhaps this pandemic that has shed a glaring light on our nation’s deficiencies will spark essential changes to our economy and to our healthcare. I know I am ready to play my part. And there is the very real possibility of a brighter future not insulated from distress, but prepared to live with misfortune wisely and humanely when it comes.

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Writing about COVID-19 in a college admission essay

by: Venkates Swaminathan | Updated: September 14, 2020

Print article

For students applying to college using the CommonApp, there are several different places where students and counselors can address the pandemic’s impact. The different sections have differing goals. You must understand how to use each section for its appropriate use.

The CommonApp COVID-19 question

First, the CommonApp this year has an additional question specifically about COVID-19 :

Community disruptions such as COVID-19 and natural disasters can have deep and long-lasting impacts. If you need it, this space is yours to describe those impacts. Colleges care about the effects on your health and well-being, safety, family circumstances, future plans, and education, including access to reliable technology and quiet study spaces. Please use this space to describe how these events have impacted you.

This question seeks to understand the adversity that students may have had to face due to the pandemic, the move to online education, or the shelter-in-place rules. You don’t have to answer this question if the impact on you wasn’t particularly severe. Some examples of things students should discuss include:

• The student or a family member had COVID-19 or suffered other illnesses due to confinement during the pandemic.
• The candidate had to deal with personal or family issues, such as abusive living situations or other safety concerns
• The student suffered from a lack of internet access and other online learning challenges.
• Students who dealt with problems registering for or taking standardized tests and AP exams.

Jeff Schiffman of the Tulane University admissions office has a blog about this section. He recommends students ask themselves several questions as they go about answering this section:

• Are my experiences different from others’?
• Are there noticeable changes on my transcript?
• Am I aware of my privilege?
• Am I specific? Am I explaining rather than complaining?
• Is this information being included elsewhere on my application?

If you do answer this section, be brief and to-the-point.

Counselor recommendations and school profiles

Second, counselors will, in their counselor forms and school profiles on the CommonApp, address how the school handled the pandemic and how it might have affected students, specifically as it relates to:

• Grading scales and policies
• Graduation requirements
• Instructional methods
• Schedules and course offerings
• Testing requirements
• Your academic calendar
• Other extenuating circumstances

Students don’t have to mention these matters in their application unless something unusual happened.

Writing about COVID-19 in your main essay

Write about your experiences during the pandemic in your main college essay if your experience is personal, relevant, and the most important thing to discuss in your college admission essay. That you had to stay home and study online isn’t sufficient, as millions of other students faced the same situation. But sometimes, it can be appropriate and helpful to write about something related to the pandemic in your essay. For example:

• One student developed a website for a local comic book store. The store might not have survived without the ability for people to order comic books online. The student had a long-standing relationship with the store, and it was an institution that created a community for students who otherwise felt left out.
• One student started a YouTube channel to help other students with academic subjects he was very familiar with and began tutoring others.
• Some students used their extra time that was the result of the stay-at-home orders to take online courses pursuing topics they are genuinely interested in or developing new interests, like a foreign language or music.

Experiences like this can be good topics for the CommonApp essay as long as they reflect something genuinely important about the student. For many students whose lives have been shaped by this pandemic, it can be a critical part of their college application.

Want more? Read 6 ways to improve a college essay , What the &%$! should I write about in my college essay , and Just how important is a college admissions essay? .

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Being a student during COVID-19

A new online exhibition of photos explores the student experience of life and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic

By Mia Zentari , Adriana Ridzwan , Holly Chung , Callisha Gregg-Rowan , Rana Islamiah Zahroh and James Tapa , University of Melbourne

Published 15 May 2020

COVID-19 has profoundly impacted so many aspects of our lives.

There have been mass job losses , emptied supermarket shelves , mandatory social distancing and educational institutions have closed their doors .

Many university students around the world are experiencing considerable stress as a result of the transformation in how they are taught and fear of an uncertain future. While those students with children are juggling work, finances and family responsibilities.

We hear a lot on the news about the pandemic’s impact on international student numbers, university funds and the general economy, but don’t hear as much from students themselves on how COVID-19 has impacted their life.

A University of Melbourne project is bringing postgraduate students together virtually to record how COVID-19 has changed how they live and learn.

The world is a classroom

Usually the Community Based Participatory Research course is taught face-to-face, with students undertaking a class research project about diversity and inclusion on campus.

The course aims to teach a collaborative approach to research that emerges from the interests or problems of a specific group or community and values the lived experience of communities, with the aim of contributing to social change.

Instead, in the middle of a pandemic, the course students conducted a class-wide visual research project based on a method called photovoice, capturing their environment and experiences during COVID-19 through photographs and descriptive text.

As a result of the project, three core themes emerged: anxiety, precarity and gratitude.

Anxiety and the ‘new normal’

Many students reflected on how they are coping with feeling overwhelmed and frustrated as they adapt to the new normal.

As classes moved online causing anxiety for some, the monotonous routines and being homebound has led to struggles with self-regulation, keeping up with content and feeling isolated from fellow students or others.

Images of schedules, timetables and technology feature prominently, with many documenting difficulties in studying while dealing with other COVID-19 stresses like grim world updates, panic-buying and fear of what would happen to themselves, as well as their family and friends.

Helping Year 12 students stay on track

One student sent in a photo of the empty shelves in the supermarket – exemplifying the sudden disorder that everyone is experiencing from the outbreak of this novel coronavirus in our society. The routines of life that had been suddenly disrupted.

As the threat of COVID-19 spread across the world, everyone seemed to be at a loss as to how to continue about their daily life, and people were at different stages of adjusting to their new reality.

Other photos and captions highlight concerns that COVID-19 was exacerbating social and economic inequalities including homelessness, while others told the story of international students facing worries about racism and whether to return home.

Feeling precarious

Precarity is experienced differently depending on a student’s living and social circumstances. Several pictures highlight the sudden disruption to normal routine through the fluctuating availability of products like toilet paper, frozen foods and medicine.

Financial precarity was explored as students discussed the loss of casual and part-time work, with its knock-on effect to housing instability, paying rent and their future housing situations.

One student sent a photo of a makeshift privacy and quarantine screen they fashioned out of an old bed frame and sheets with the caption: “A friend had to unexpectedly return to Australia and couldn’t find anywhere to stay for the 14 days of self-isolation on a low budget. My two housemates and I gave him our lounge room to help both him and us with rent as we’d all lost our jobs.”

Many pictures show shared workspaces at home, crowded with communication technologies. The sudden reliance on internet and mobile phone signals for productivity and social connection accompanies concerns around the stability and reliability of these online links.

Fitting four people and up to six laptops on a small lounge room table is tight, according to another student, as we “Zoom, Skype and write in the new COVID-19 reality”. The sudden shift to online for a group of four post-grad students led to many conversations about what they’d lost by no longer being able to engage in face- to-face tutorials, seminars and meetings.

The feeling as a student in this new space feels in some ways inclusive, but also isolated and separate from their usual support networks and community.

These uncertainties present challenges for some students, while others created their own stability with timetables, personal workspaces and connections with loved ones.

A focus on gratitude

Despite the circumstances, gratitude is a recurring theme throughout the project.

The psychology of isolation

One student recorded feeling an “overwhelming gratitude at the layers upon layers of safety nets that rest invisibly below me. A relatively secure job, a partner with a secure job, stable housing, family, friends, community.

“I am, more than ever, aware of my own privilege and the ways this crisis has and will continue to exacerbate existing inequalities.”

Students are grateful for technology, supportive social networks, the natural environment and appreciated the flexibility to renegotiate their time.

Technology is enabling students to maintain connections and support classes to continue.

Giving and receiving assistance to others despite physical distance has created a new sense of social inclusion and many students were newly grateful for outdoor space and nature.

Many students communicated they are also grateful for family and friends. Time gained through job loss was spent with them as well as friends, pets and nature.

Another student was on a (socially distant) run when they came across a chalk message written on the path.

“I felt a little emotional when I saw it and despite having to warily dodge other people to avoid being within two metres of them, I felt a bit less alone in that moment.

“I’ve needed to reach out in the past and ask for help as a student and I feel comforted knowing that there is support if I need it.”

The little things usually taken for granted are now appreciated.

COVID-19 has transformed the student experience.

It has forced students to self-reflect and appreciate strengths within themselves and others, and to develop awareness of their own social frailty.

Sharing this knowledge and experience builds solidarity among students and highlights their challenges to universities and the wider community as we all work towards recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

For more student photos and reflections on the impact of COVID-19 on student life, you can visit the full online exhibition website .

Banner: Supplied

Featured individuals

Mia Zentari

Student researcher, Talking hunger: understanding food insecurity on campus, Melbourne Social Equity Institute, University of Melbourne

Adriana Ridzwan

Student, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne

Holly Chung

Callisha Gregg-Rowan

Rana Islamiah Zahroh

Graduate Researcher, Gender and Women's Health Unit, Centre for Health Equity, School of Population and Global Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne

Professor Richard Chenhall

Medical Anthropology, Centre for Health Equity, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, University of Melbourne

Associate Professor Cathy Vaughan

Centre for Health Equity, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne

Find out more about research in this faculty

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Acknowledgement of country

We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Owners of the unceded lands on which we work, learn and live. We pay respect to Elders past, present and future, and acknowledge the importance of Indigenous knowledge in the Academy.

What students have learned about themselves living in COVID-19 pandemic: Student Voices winners

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, many students have developed new hobbies and  strengths, come to appreciate family and friends,  and face a wide variety  of emotions.

In the first of 2021 Asbury Park Press Student Voices Essay contest, we posed the question: What have you learned about yourself during the pandemic?

Our students have shared with us the transformation  and growth they have achieved during the pandemic.  Below are the winning essays for December, as judged by the Press editorial staff.

First place winner: Grades 7-8

It’s okay to feel worried

The year of 2020 has been interesting, to say the least. I have learned many things about myself during the course of the pandemic. Let’s just say that I am not known to be the most optimistic person; I am a bit of a pessimist and an overthinker.  It suddenly occurred to me one day, when I had been in a particularly nasty mood: I was always a fairly reasonable child. I managed emotions well. I wouldn’t cry when I didn’t receive a toy that I wanted. It was not typical of me to perform nonsensical actions- temper tantrums, unreasonable decisions, and fits of anger were not a typical trait of mine. I was entertained easily. I was creative. I had never really dealt with true stress, real stress, until this year. Or real boredom.

I am an artist; I almost never run out of ideas. I perceive light and color and shapes in many different ways. I paint. I draw. But dealing with quarantine was a whole different obstacle to deal with together. Stress saps away my creativity- and I can get pretty cranky if I feel like I am not doing anything productive. It was not until this year that I realized how adaptable I am. Or how simple it is to deal with stress. I could have saved so much time and energy if I had realized that it’s okay to feel worried, that I shouldn’t panic over new situations too much.

I don’t like change; I generally dislike travelling and other things in that category. When New Jersey had to go into quarantine due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I wasn’t very happy, but as an introvert, I figured that it would be nice to have two weeks to recharge my energy. Well, two weeks turned into a month. A month turned into two months. At the two-month mark, I began to become extremely bored. I had nothing to do in my free time besides sit at a computer screen. I was dissatisfied with my work. 

I felt like the once creative and sunny part of my mind was engulfed in mist. I didn’t know how to get out of it. At around three months of quarantine, I realized that the reason why I was struggling so much with work and school was because of stress. I realized I needed to calm down. When I was a child, I did yoga and stretching exercises. I decided to start that again. Immediately following the start of this I felt so much better. It was like magic. I began having confidence in my work again; I began rapidly improving. So great was the feeling of happiness that I never wanted to utter a pessimist word again in my life (sadly, this didn’t happen, I can still be a bit negative sometimes).

One day, you may be overwhelmed by something or someone in your life. Do not give in. Keep yourself afloat. Don’t let yourself be swallowed up by the vast and dark waters of sorrow. If you persist for long enough, you will get through any difficult situation that challenges you. And most of all, remember this: there is always someone who cares about you. You matter. Stay strong.

Joan Obolo-Pawlish

Teacher: Melinda Willems

Ocean Township Intermediate School    

First place winner: Grades 9-12

Overcoming obstacles is part of life

A whirlwind of negativity surrounds 2020. When things do not go as planned we as humans tend to immediately panic, throwing blame and projecting our own guilt onto others. But personally I find that change, while difficult, is just a test that I have to strive to overcome on my own. Growing up is all about self discovery through unexpected ways, of course, a global pandemic is not something I planned on experiencing, but two words come to mind when I look back on this year and my journey through it: acceptance and growth. 

I try to remember my life before everything shut down. I was free to go wherever, be as close to others as I wanted, and invest too much into everything happening around me. I thought that I was a social butterfly, that being in a group was where I was meant to be. But while home with just my family, I quickly learned that using other people as a distraction was just a way for me to avoid looking into who I really was. Whether it was to validate my feelings or just entertain me with useless drama, I realized that relying on others so much was an unhealthy way to live. So while the world hid, I found myself. I accepted that this was how it was going to be for now, and that I was given this time as an opportunity to rest, and heal, and break myself down and start from scratch. Grieve for everything that was gone, but also find new things everyday that made this kind of lonely life worth living. Filling my days with my family and activities like long nature walks, music, and art helped me grow into a strong, independent, and stable young woman during a time filled with such instability.

No, this was not easy. Yes, there were a lot of hard days and tears shed...and I’m not even done yet! This year is not over, this pandemic is not over, my life is not over. I have so much more change to grow through and so much more to discover about myself. Overcoming obstacles is part of life, so all I can ask is; what next?  

Sofia Roman

Teacher: Melissa Pitman

Academy of Allied Health and Science

Second place winner: Grades 7-8

Are you really ok?

Emotions are confusing, they're unpredictable and hard to control. During quarantine, I was focusing more on myself and found I was emotionally unstable. I found it hard to be happy when things were going right, and I found it difficult to be sad when things weren’t working out. I found myself crying at random times when my day was going well or if it was complete haywire. I was aware that something didn’t feel right, but I shrugged it off and told myself it was normal. I was lying to myself, but the more I did, the harder it got to tell the difference between a lie and a truth. 

As time went by, I started to distance myself from my parents. I started refusing hugs and I stopped telling them I love them. Of course I cared about them, but the idea of getting a hug or saying “I love you” was uncomfortable to me. That’s when I started to feel alone and less energetic than usual. This caused me to procrastinate with school and I felt overwhelmed. I spent the majority of my time in my bedroom on my bed doing schoolwork or using my phone. There was a time where I forgot the last time I stepped outside. Everything felt boring to the point where even eating was boring. 

One day, my friend Dania introduced Japanese cartoons called Anime. I was captivated by them and used them as a way to escape reality. Running away from your problems isn’t a way to solve them. I knew that, but I just enjoyed myself because at least I was happy. I watched them almost everyday, and one day I came across an anime where the protagonist was trying to get control of her feelings and trying to understand them. Along the way she realized that her problem was that she was hiding her emotions because she thought that if she showed them, she would be a problem. That’s when it clicked. 

It was like I found the last piece to an unsolved puzzle. My problem was that I was hiding and holding in my emotions, and it resulted in me losing control. It made me forget when to cry, laugh, and yell. From that day on I started to express my emotions. I felt free like a bird soaring through the sky. I started to hug and tell my parents I loved them. I could finally control the steering wheel of my emotions. I was no longer being devoured by them. I was eating well and getting the proper amount of sunlight. I was happy that I no longer needed to escape reality. 

Emotions are confusing, they're unpredictable and hard to control. At times you feel that showing your emotions makes you a problem and annoying. You feel like reality is not worth a shot and try to escape it, but you're wrong. Emotions are a way of defining who you are as a person. Your emotions will not make you a problem or annoying. Telling someone how your feeling is only gonna help you. This quarantine I learned that you should never try to hide or hold in your feelings. 

Guadalupe Monterrozas

Teacher: Melinda Willems 

Ocean Township Intermediate School

Second place winner: Grades 9-12

Personal Renaissance of self-discovery

I spend most of my time alone. And I’m fine with it because I’ve always been good at keeping myself occupied; I’ve always known that. But when the world closed and locked it’s doors for the past ten months I’ve realized how much I rely on seeing people in-person and going places to see or talk to others at all. I don’t get many calls or texts from friends and I’m usually fine with that because we pick up right where we left off whenever we see each other in person.

But now we can’t see each other in person. 

Quarantining was fine, I guess. You know, as fine as it can be. Most of my hobbies I can do on my own anyway: reading, writing, art, anything to do with music, cooking, and playing video games (most of which are single player anyway). I bet a lot of people would complain about having to stay in their houses 24/7, but I’m not one of them. Really. I’m not. Being completely honest, my schedule hadn’t really been affected all that much, besides school and stuff. But why, all of a sudden, do I have the urge to get out of the house and do something? I’m sure plenty of people have been feeling this recently, but I’ve never really felt like this before. I guess now that I can’t, it makes me want to do it more. 

When school started again, I joined every club or activity that caught my eye. Even though I still sometimes complain about my extracurriculars, I’ve been meeting people, and talking to them, and becoming friends with them; I’m exhausted between schoolwork and after-school activities, but I’m happy. 

Although the lesson I’ve learned appears to be relating to the importance of interpersonal relationships, what I’ve really learned was confidence. I, like a majority of people around the world, have had a surplus of free time on my hands to spend by myself and I’ve used that time to discover new things about myself, new passions, and new ways to creatively express myself. My becoming more comfortable with myself has allowed me to do things I never thought I could and show the world a better version of myself. I’m in the middle of a personal Renaissance of self-discovery, self-expression, and self-love. 

Madelyn Killi

Teacher: Susan Kuper

Point Pleasant Borough High School

Third place winner: Grades 7-8

My Lifeline

Normal people would think that a messy, hard working, and dirty stable could never seem like home to someone. I am not a normal person. I see a filthy barn as the ideal place to spend my summer. Over the course of the pandemic, everything normal faded, disappeared, and crumpled into what is now our ¨new normal.¨ My original lifelines have begun to fade. Ice Hockey was postponed and I couldn't see my friends and family as much as I would like. But even in the worst of times, something good can come out of it. That is how I found my new lifeline.

It may seem weird or different to other people that I ride horses, but just like any other

lovable animal, horses both give unconditional love and are great companions. As the pandemic shut down events, I was becoming both lazy and unmotivated. The only thing that kept me from these threats was the most unlikely animal, my horse, Max. He is the most amazing horse I have ever met, he has the most loving and caring personality. He's coat is a mix of black, and a gold- tinted bay(light and dark browns), with a pure white star marking on his forehead. His mane and tail are ebony black, and his light bay is offset by his black marking scattered all along his body.

He provided me with an outlet, a way to deal with the restrictions, loneliness, and the lack of motivation. Horses are animals that people don't expect to be a girl's best friend and treasured companion.

Haley Terranova

Teacher: Mrs. Orosz

Memorial Middle School

Third place winner: Grades 9-12

Light Switch

Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, my life has turned into a living oxymoron. The dismay hindered my natural routine of living. It is as if the spark of optimism within me has been shut off.  Albeit the conspicuous negatives, I attempted to find the “light in the darkness.” Although the beginning of the pandemic brought a depletion to my mental health, steady progression is oncoming.  

Each of my hobbies and exercises represents a light in a room. The lights turned off progressively until I was left alone with the darkness and the enigma of my inner thoughts. Singing, off. Theatre, Off. Piano, Off. Hanging out with friends? Off. The overwhelming amalgamation of emotions as my mind attempted to process the sudden change became unbearable. 

Normative living? Off. The abrupt collapse of enterprises and businesses flipped an off-switch on regular daily practices. This was the moment of realization that I had taken many aspects of life for granted. As an extroverted person, I thrive off of the happiness and joy of others. I needed a human connection. I needed a conversation, not muffled volume. I needed to see eyes, nose, and mouth. It was different behind a screen. The light switch in my mind was not off. The power went out, and it refused to turn back on. 

My depression and anxiety depleted progressively. I did not want this. To be fair, no one wants the emotions of emptiness and dread. I so longed for change and the dissipation of my uncertainty and loneliness. However, one thing was for sure, I was not alone. I began consulting a therapist and began conversing with my friends and family. I started adapting to the abrupt adjustments. Life began writing a new variation of normalcy. 

I am delighted with my leisurely and steady progression. I am enthusiastic about the pursuit of new hobbies and interests. I now appreciate and relish the little things in life more. My family being loud, the smell of home-cooked meals, and even the faint sunlight beaming through my window make waking up worth it. The aid of my friends and family is the generator that powers my light within. My light switch is on, and I want to keep it on. 

Darryn Dizon

Teacher: Donna Mulvaney

Donovan Catholic High School

Honorable Mention Winners

Grades 7-8 

Sara Cook, Grade 7, Point Pleasant Borough School, Teacher: Shannon Orosz 

Leah Gerdes, Grade 7, Point Pleasant Borough School, Teacher: Melissa Hans

Miriam Priborkina, Grade 7, Manalapan Englishtown Regional School, Teacher: Cassie Capadona

Grades 9-12

Emma Conroy, Grade 10, Donovan Catholic, Teacher: Donna Mulvaney

Samantha Keller, Grade 10, Donovan Catholic,  Teacher: Donna Mulvaney

Marlee Card, Grade 11, Point Pleasant Borough High, Teacher: Susan Kuper 

Read these 12 moving essays about life during coronavirus

Artists, novelists, critics, and essayists are writing the first draft of history.

by Alissa Wilkinson

The world is grappling with an invisible, deadly enemy, trying to understand how to live with the threat posed by a virus . For some writers, the only way forward is to put pen to paper, trying to conceptualize and document what it feels like to continue living as countries are under lockdown and regular life seems to have ground to a halt.

So as the coronavirus pandemic has stretched around the world, it’s sparked a crop of diary entries and essays that describe how life has changed. Novelists, critics, artists, and journalists have put words to the feelings many are experiencing. The result is a first draft of how we’ll someday remember this time, filled with uncertainty and pain and fear as well as small moments of hope and humanity.

• The Vox guide to navigating the coronavirus crisis

At the New York Review of Books, Ali Bhutto writes that in Karachi, Pakistan, the government-imposed curfew due to the virus is “eerily reminiscent of past military clampdowns”:

Beneath the quiet calm lies a sense that society has been unhinged and that the usual rules no longer apply. Small groups of pedestrians look on from the shadows, like an audience watching a spectacle slowly unfolding. People pause on street corners and in the shade of trees, under the watchful gaze of the paramilitary forces and the police.

His essay concludes with the sobering note that “in the minds of many, Covid-19 is just another life-threatening hazard in a city that stumbles from one crisis to another.”

Writing from Chattanooga, novelist Jamie Quatro documents the mixed ways her neighbors have been responding to the threat, and the frustration of conflicting direction, or no direction at all, from local, state, and federal leaders:

Whiplash, trying to keep up with who’s ordering what. We’re already experiencing enough chaos without this back-and-forth. Why didn’t the federal government issue a nationwide shelter-in-place at the get-go, the way other countries did? What happens when one state’s shelter-in-place ends, while others continue? Do states still under quarantine close their borders? We are still one nation, not fifty individual countries. Right?

• A syllabus for the end of the world

Award-winning photojournalist Alessio Mamo, quarantined with his partner Marta in Sicily after she tested positive for the virus, accompanies his photographs in the Guardian of their confinement with a reflection on being confined :

The doctors asked me to take a second test, but again I tested negative. Perhaps I’m immune? The days dragged on in my apartment, in black and white, like my photos. Sometimes we tried to smile, imagining that I was asymptomatic, because I was the virus. Our smiles seemed to bring good news. My mother left hospital, but I won’t be able to see her for weeks. Marta started breathing well again, and so did I. I would have liked to photograph my country in the midst of this emergency, the battles that the doctors wage on the frontline, the hospitals pushed to their limits, Italy on its knees fighting an invisible enemy. That enemy, a day in March, knocked on my door instead.

In the New York Times Magazine, deputy editor Jessica Lustig writes with devastating clarity about her family’s life in Brooklyn while her husband battled the virus, weeks before most people began taking the threat seriously:

At the door of the clinic, we stand looking out at two older women chatting outside the doorway, oblivious. Do I wave them away? Call out that they should get far away, go home, wash their hands, stay inside? Instead we just stand there, awkwardly, until they move on. Only then do we step outside to begin the long three-block walk home. I point out the early magnolia, the forsythia. T says he is cold. The untrimmed hairs on his neck, under his beard, are white. The few people walking past us on the sidewalk don’t know that we are visitors from the future. A vision, a premonition, a walking visitation. This will be them: Either T, in the mask, or — if they’re lucky — me, tending to him.

Essayist Leslie Jamison writes in the New York Review of Books about being shut away alone in her New York City apartment with her 2-year-old daughter since she became sick:

The virus. Its sinewy, intimate name. What does it feel like in my body today? Shivering under blankets. A hot itch behind the eyes. Three sweatshirts in the middle of the day. My daughter trying to pull another blanket over my body with her tiny arms. An ache in the muscles that somehow makes it hard to lie still. This loss of taste has become a kind of sensory quarantine. It’s as if the quarantine keeps inching closer and closer to my insides. First I lost the touch of other bodies; then I lost the air; now I’ve lost the taste of bananas. Nothing about any of these losses is particularly unique. I’ve made a schedule so I won’t go insane with the toddler. Five days ago, I wrote Walk/Adventure! on it, next to a cut-out illustration of a tiger—as if we’d see tigers on our walks. It was good to keep possibility alive.

At Literary Hub, novelist Heidi Pitlor writes about the elastic nature of time during her family’s quarantine in Massachusetts:

During a shutdown, the things that mark our days—commuting to work, sending our kids to school, having a drink with friends—vanish and time takes on a flat, seamless quality. Without some self-imposed structure, it’s easy to feel a little untethered. A friend recently posted on Facebook: “For those who have lost track, today is Blursday the fortyteenth of Maprilay.” ... Giving shape to time is especially important now, when the future is so shapeless. We do not know whether the virus will continue to rage for weeks or months or, lord help us, on and off for years. We do not know when we will feel safe again. And so many of us, minus those who are gifted at compartmentalization or denial, remain largely captive to fear. We may stay this way if we do not create at least the illusion of movement in our lives, our long days spent with ourselves or partners or families.

• What day is it today?

Novelist Lauren Groff writes at the New York Review of Books about trying to escape the prison of her fears while sequestered at home in Gainesville, Florida:

Some people have imaginations sparked only by what they can see; I blame this blinkered empiricism for the parks overwhelmed with people, the bars, until a few nights ago, thickly thronged. My imagination is the opposite. I fear everything invisible to me. From the enclosure of my house, I am afraid of the suffering that isn’t present before me, the people running out of money and food or drowning in the fluid in their lungs, the deaths of health-care workers now growing ill while performing their duties. I fear the federal government, which the right wing has so—intentionally—weakened that not only is it insufficient to help its people, it is actively standing in help’s way. I fear we won’t sufficiently punish the right. I fear leaving the house and spreading the disease. I fear what this time of fear is doing to my children, their imaginations, and their souls.

At ArtForum , Berlin-based critic and writer Kristian Vistrup Madsen reflects on martinis, melancholia, and Finnish artist Jaakko Pallasvuo’s 2018 graphic novel Retreat , in which three young people exile themselves in the woods:

In melancholia, the shape of what is ending, and its temporality, is sprawling and incomprehensible. The ambivalence makes it hard to bear. The world of Retreat is rendered in lush pink and purple watercolors, which dissolve into wild and messy abstractions. In apocalypse, the divisions established in genesis bleed back out. My own Corona-retreat is similarly soft, color-field like, each day a blurred succession of quarantinis, YouTube–yoga, and televized press conferences. As restrictions mount, so does abstraction. For now, I’m still rooting for love to save the world.

At the Paris Review , Matt Levin writes about reading Virginia Woolf’s novel The Waves during quarantine:

A retreat, a quarantine, a sickness—they simultaneously distort and clarify, curtail and expand. It is an ideal state in which to read literature with a reputation for difficulty and inaccessibility, those hermetic books shorn of the handholds of conventional plot or characterization or description. A novel like Virginia Woolf’s The Waves is perfect for the state of interiority induced by quarantine—a story of three men and three women, meeting after the death of a mutual friend, told entirely in the overlapping internal monologues of the six, interspersed only with sections of pure, achingly beautiful descriptions of the natural world, a day’s procession and recession of light and waves. The novel is, in my mind’s eye, a perfectly spherical object. It is translucent and shimmering and infinitely fragile, prone to shatter at the slightest disturbance. It is not a book that can be read in snatches on the subway—it demands total absorption. Though it revels in a stark emotional nakedness, the book remains aloof, remote in its own deep self-absorption.

• Vox is starting a book club. Come read with us!

In an essay for the Financial Times, novelist Arundhati Roy writes with anger about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s anemic response to the threat, but also offers a glimmer of hope for the future:

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.

From Boston, Nora Caplan-Bricker writes in The Point about the strange contraction of space under quarantine, in which a friend in Beirut is as close as the one around the corner in the same city:

It’s a nice illusion—nice to feel like we’re in it together, even if my real world has shrunk to one person, my husband, who sits with his laptop in the other room. It’s nice in the same way as reading those essays that reframe social distancing as solidarity. “We must begin to see the negative space as clearly as the positive, to know what we don’t do is also brilliant and full of love,” the poet Anne Boyer wrote on March 10th, the day that Massachusetts declared a state of emergency. If you squint, you could almost make sense of this quarantine as an effort to flatten, along with the curve, the distinctions we make between our bonds with others. Right now, I care for my neighbor in the same way I demonstrate love for my mother: in all instances, I stay away. And in moments this month, I have loved strangers with an intensity that is new to me. On March 14th, the Saturday night after the end of life as we knew it, I went out with my dog and found the street silent: no lines for restaurants, no children on bicycles, no couples strolling with little cups of ice cream. It had taken the combined will of thousands of people to deliver such a sudden and complete emptiness. I felt so grateful, and so bereft.

And on his own website, musician and artist David Byrne writes about rediscovering the value of working for collective good , saying that “what is happening now is an opportunity to learn how to change our behavior”:

In emergencies, citizens can suddenly cooperate and collaborate. Change can happen. We’re going to need to work together as the effects of climate change ramp up. In order for capitalism to survive in any form, we will have to be a little more socialist. Here is an opportunity for us to see things differently — to see that we really are all connected — and adjust our behavior accordingly. Are we willing to do this? Is this moment an opportunity to see how truly interdependent we all are? To live in a world that is different and better than the one we live in now? We might be too far down the road to test every asymptomatic person, but a change in our mindsets, in how we view our neighbors, could lay the groundwork for the collective action we’ll need to deal with other global crises. The time to see how connected we all are is now.

The portrait these writers paint of a world under quarantine is multifaceted. Our worlds have contracted to the confines of our homes, and yet in some ways we’re more connected than ever to one another. We feel fear and boredom, anger and gratitude, frustration and strange peace. Uncertainty drives us to find metaphors and images that will let us wrap our minds around what is happening.

Yet there’s no single “what” that is happening. Everyone is contending with the pandemic and its effects from different places and in different ways. Reading others’ experiences — even the most frightening ones — can help alleviate the loneliness and dread, a little, and remind us that what we’re going through is both unique and shared by all.

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How COVID-19 pandemic changed my life

Table of Contents

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic is one of the biggest challenges that our world has ever faced. People around the globe were affected in some way by this terrible disease, whether personally or not. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, many people felt isolated and in a state of panic. They often found themselves lacking a sense of community, confidence, and trust. The health systems in many countries were able to successfully prevent and treat people with COVID-19-related diseases while providing early intervention services to those who may not be fully aware that they are infected (Rume & Islam, 2020). Personally, this pandemic has brought numerous changes and challenges to my life. The COVID-19 pandemic affected my social, academic, and economic lifestyle positively and negatively.

Social and Academic Changes

One of the changes brought by the pandemic was economic changes that occurred very drastically (Haleem, Javaid, & Vaishya, 2020). During the pandemic, food prices started to rise, affecting the amount of money my parents could spend on goods and services. We had to reduce the food we bought as our budgets were stretched. My family also had to eliminate unhealthy food bought in bulk, such as crisps and chocolate bars. Furthermore, the pandemic made us more aware of the importance of keeping our homes clean, especially regarding cooking food. Lastly, it also made us more aware of how we talked to other people when they were ill and stayed home with them rather than being out and getting on with other things.

Furthermore, COVID-19 had a significant effect on my academic life. Immediately, measures to curb the pandemic were announced, such as closing all learning institutions in the country; my school life changed. The change began when our school implemented the online education system to ensure that we continued with our education during the lockdown period. At first, this affected me negatively because when learning was not happening in a formal environment, I struggled academically since I was not getting the face-to-face interaction with the teachers I needed. Furthermore, forcing us to attend online caused my classmates and me to feel disconnected from the knowledge being taught because we were unable to have peer participation in class. However, as the pandemic subsided, we grew accustomed to this learning mode. We realized the effects on our performance and learning satisfaction were positive, as it seemed to promote emotional and behavioral changes necessary to function in a virtual world. Students who participated in e-learning during the pandemic developed more ownership of the course requirement, increased their emotional intelligence and self-awareness, improved their communication skills, and learned to work together as a community.

If there is an area that the pandemic affected was the mental health of my family and myself. The COVID-19 pandemic caused increased anxiety, depression, and other mental health concerns that were difficult for my family and me to manage alone. Our ability to learn social resilience skills, such as self-management, was tested numerous times. One of the most visible challenges we faced was social isolation and loneliness. The multiple lockdowns made it difficult to interact with my friends and family, leading to loneliness. The changes in communication exacerbated the problem as interactions moved from face-to-face to online communication using social media and text messages. Furthermore, having family members and loved ones separated from us due to distance, unavailability of phones, and the internet created a situation of fear among us, as we did not know whether they were all right. Moreover, some people within my circle found it more challenging to communicate with friends, family, and co-workers due to poor communication skills. This was mainly attributed to anxiety or a higher risk of spreading the disease. It was also related to a poor understanding of creating and maintaining relationships during this period.

Positive Changes

In addition, this pandemic has brought some positive changes with it. First, it had been a significant catalyst for strengthening relationships and neighborhood ties. It has encouraged a sense of community because family members, neighbors, friends, and community members within my area were all working together to help each other out. Before the pandemic, everybody focused on their business, the children going to school while the older people went to work. There was not enough time to bond with each other. Well, the pandemic changed that, something that has continued until now that everything is returning to normal. In our home, it strengthened the relationship between myself and my siblings and parents. This is because we started spending more time together as a family, which enhanced our sense of understanding of ourselves.

The pandemic has been a challenging time for many people. I can confidently state that it was a significant and potentially unprecedented change in our daily life. By changing how we do things and relate with our family and friends, the pandemic has shaped our future life experiences and shown that during crises, we can come together and make a difference in each other’s lives. Therefore, I embrace wholesomely the changes brought by the COVID-19 pandemic in my life.

• Haleem, A., Javaid, M., & Vaishya, R. (2020). Effects of COVID-19 pandemic in daily life.  Current medicine research and practice ,  10 (2), 78.
• Rume, T., & Islam, S. D. U. (2020). Environmental effects of COVID-19 pandemic and potential strategies of sustainability.  Heliyon ,  6 (9), e04965.
• ☠️ Assisted Suicide
• Affordable Care Act
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Dollars & Sense

Reporting from the boroughs and beyond, students reflect on life during the pandemic.

Baruch’s Journalism Department asked students to write essays about their personal experiences during the pandemic. Dollars & Sense is publishing a selection of the winners from the spring ’21 essay contest :

First Place: Rosa Guevara

Swipe, swipe, swipe, as I entered the pin to our food stamps card. Here we go again; the worker at Trader Joe’s looks at me and my mom in discomfort. Is it because we’re people of color shopping in the middle of a pandemic? Is it our food stamps card that triggers you? Or is it that you’re jealous of our card? Could it be both? READ ROSA’S FULL ESSAY

Second Place: Caitlin Cacciatore

One day, this darkness will abate. We’ll put away our masks, dab on lipstick in their place, and congregate in large numbers in much the same way we used to take for granted. There will be dancing and revelry, and we’ll take the lessons we learned from COVID-19, pack them away in a safe, inside a box, and secret them in a little-used corner of the collective halls of memory, to be discovered by another generation, when they find themselves in the midst of the next pandemic. READ CAITLIN’S FULL ESSAY

Third Place: Lylia Saurel

His teeth bit my mouth, and I could feel the blood rushing in my lower lip. He held my body firmly enough that I couldn’t defend myself, but loosely enough that he could take advantage of it. The giant screen threw an incessant light on us, the sound of the movie covered up my pain. I sought to move back in my red velvet seat, but his fingers had already invited themselves under my clothes and the agony had already set in me. I tried to push him away, but each of my attempts caused him to finger me deeper and stronger, so I stopped trying. I let him finish. READ LYLIA’S FULL ESSAY

Honorable Mention: Andrea Blanco

The vaccine comes as unexpectedly as the infection. I’m standing at a bus stop outside a hospital in Queens. The leftover winter cold makes me seek refuge between the glass doors of the building entrance. A nurse approaches me and asks if I want to take one of the two doses they have left. Two patients missed their appointment. I say I do. In the back of my head, I wish it was my hypertensive, immunocompromised mother here in this hospital corner. She’s two thousand miles away, in a country that only started vaccinating mid-February. READ ANDREA’S FULL ESSAY

Honorable Mention: Trinity Hollis

A highlight of the pandemic was my seasonal position at Party City. I assisted customers in selecting Halloween costumes as they grasped for some sense of normalcy. I was a fairy godmother of sorts: I spent shifts fluttering my wings up and down aisle one, transforming customers into princesses, wizards, superheroes, nurses, spies and whatever else they wished to become. My domain was referred to as the Halloween aisle, save for the election gear in the very front facing the automatic doors. READ TRINITY’S FULL ESSAY

More about the contest:

Prof. Bridgett Davis ’ memoir “ The World According To Fannie Davis ” reveals a family secret: Her mom was a number-runner in Detroit. It inspired Baruch alum David Shulman to fund a contest for students to share their own personal stories during these unprecedented times.

You can watch our winners read their essays here:

My Life During the Pandemic

COVID-19 has definitely taken a toll. This pandemic has caused many to lose their jobs, their homes, and their lives. We all hope for a vaccine soon, in the hopes that this virus can be brought under control. In the meantime, many of us have been practicing personal hygiene and social distancing to avoid getting infected. 

            The virus has impacted my life mentally. For the first three months I was worried and irritated with how this virus was being handled. I thought for sure that this virus would infect me and my family. Every time I spoke about it I was told to just practice personal hygiene and social distancing. Over the summer I used my free time to work on my mental health. Before I returned home from campus, my anxiety was at its peak. Realizing how anxious I was I wanted the feeling of panic to end. 

So, I started going to group therapy. I attended several different programs. All of them revolved around understanding anxiety and how to deal with it (link to a group I attended below). Throughout these three months, I developed a new relationship with my anxiety. This program taught me to detect early signs of a panic attack before it even occurs. The group therapist gave us useful tools to use when we feel our anxiety levels rising. Tools such as ten connected breaths and two minute imageries have helped me better control my anxiety. I feel very grateful for this result because I was patient with myself and completed my homework; which was to practice the imageries and ten connected breaths. There are plenty of other tools to use in order to combat a panic attack, but these are the ones that worked for me.

Being at home the entire summer also motivated me to exercise more. During my freshman year I barely worked out and I noticed how that affected my mood. Exercise not only helps me stay healthy and in shape, but it also helps me stay in a positive mindset. For three months I did Zumba and Yoga every week. Besides feeling happier I noticed that I was in better shape physically. Given the circumstances of the Pandemic, I was in lockdown for a month. I knew that I had to find a way to stay healthy without going to a gym, so I decided to work out at home. My body physically changed after exercising so much and I'm happy with the result. 

In the past month, the pandemic hit some of my family members pretty hard. Both financially and emotionally my family was affected. I am fortunate to have such a caring and generous family who will step up and help anyone in need. It’s tough seeing some family members struggling mentally and emotionally, though. Especially with a pandemic, previous feelings of anxiety and depression are amplified. Even though it hurts me to see my family going through difficult times, I try to do my part to help. Through this experience I've learned that having someone that will listen to you and comfort you is one of the greatest gifts to have. 

Throughout the entire summer, if there’s something I’ve learned, it’s to always try and find the light even in the darkest times.

“Island of Calm” Anxiety Breakthrough Program. Hosted by Sari Sack Terrusa, MS, LMHC.   https://www.tsijupiter.com/AnxietyBreakthroughProgram.en.html

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Student essays reflect Covid-19 struggles

What’s on the minds these days from students at Como Park Senior High School?

Here are essays from juniors Jude Breen, Keira Schumacher and Logan Becker who wrote these essays in late February for English teacher Elizabeth Boyer’s CIS Writing Studio class.

What A Blessing

by Jude Breen

When I reflect on the 2020 football season, I always find myself concurring with the word gratitude.

Every day at practice, Coach Scull would have us take a minute. We would sit there in perfect silence and bask in the opportunity and blessing that we were given in being able to have a season. Not only because it was nice to be doing something normal, but also for the chance to build these lifelong friendships and memories that we all will still think back on decades down the road.

I am constantly thinking back to our game against Johnson. Como hasn’t beat Johnson in football for over 10 years and Johnson likes to let us know that. There was a lot of pressure going into the game. We knew we were a good team with many weapons, but we really had to prove ourselves in this matchup.

The game was on a Saturday morning, and it was the first real cold day we had all year. The type of cold where your toes are numb and your snot is frozen inside of your nose . . . not very pretty.

Despite the crisp wind on our faces, we were fired up.

Our Cougars scored first. I threw a corner route in the end zone to Stone who tracked the rock-hard, bruising football for a touchdown. There’s no feeling quite like your first touchdown. The defense stood strong all game and only allowed one touchdown.

We went into overtime tied 6-6. The strong bodies of our defensive lineman protected the tie, then out came our offense. We direct snapped the ball to Stone and he follows his bodyguard blockers into the end zone, reaching with every inch he has to get the ball over the goal line.

And then, pandemonium ensues. We stormed the field in a sea of black. Johnson players were on their knees questioning how in the world they let Como beat them. The adrenaline running through my body made me forget all about the blistering wind chill, as Coach Scull did his victory dance in our team circle.

Once the celebration is over, the grind started all over again in preparation for the upcoming game. The next Monday we were back on our beautiful turf, again in perfect silence, processing how grateful we are for what we have done so far and what is to come.

I will never forget this season. Hard work truly does pay off, and I have unconditional gratitude for my brothers on my team, and the role models I found in the coaching staff.

A Little Bit of Happiness

By Keira Schumacher

Quarantine has been a hard, boring, slow and tiring time for every­one. Being stuck in the same place day after day has made every moment feel the same. It’s almost been a year now since quarantine has started, so I’m sure that everyone has felt this repetition of days just like I have.

By now it’s very hard to find things that can separate the days for me to make them different or unique. I have hobbies that I can do at home. I draw and paint, play video games. But at some point you get sick of those too.

After months of everything being the same, I knew I had to do something to make my time in quarantine a little bit better. I didn’t think that doing little things, like cleaning my room, walking my dogs, or even just taking time to listen to music would make such an impact on my days.

Taking time for yourself and doing something solely for you and no one else have made my days a little better. When your days start to melt together without being able to separate them, you can get stuck in a rut without being able to get out. That’s happened to me a few times. Sometimes the rut lasts only a few days, but sometimes it can last weeks.

When I’m stuck in this place of repetition it demotivates me to do anything. It feels that anything I do doesn’t really matter because everything will be the same the next day and the day after that. It can be very hard for me to clear my head and start to actively do things rather than just floating through the days.

Some things that have helped me get through these ruts are making a good cup of coffee in the morning, or doing some laundry to be able to wear your favorite sweatshirt again.

I’ve been lucky enough to be able to go downhill skiing this winter, which is the biggest factor for helping me clear my mind and resetting. Being able to breath the cold crisp air on the hills as I’m speeding down. Being able to enjoy skiing with my friends has been one of the main reasons I’m not in a constant rut.

You have to work to find happiness and fulfillment in the little things.

Struggles with online learning

By Logan Becker

Onerous and loneliness are two words I would use to describe the past nine months each and every one of us has experienced. Our main issue, and quite frankly the most obvious one, would be the coronavirus.

It’s been exceptionally difficult on most of us, and the days feel as if they just keep getting worse and worse. Hearing about a vaccine was a lighthearted and a very hopeful sign that everything will turn out okay.

But, social distancing at this point has been nothing but repetitive. I fully understand it’s a safety precaution to keep everyone safe from this pandemic, but it still hurts to know I’m unable to see my friends daily.

I go through my day expecting the same thing consistently over and over again through this pandemic. It’s quite literally the same: Wake up, brush my teeth, take a shower, eat some breakfast, feed my dogs, check in on my little brother, take out the trash, make some lunch, do the dishes, do my laundry, spend time with family and go to sleep. It seems as if spending time at home has been more time consuming than my regular day life before the pandemic. And it’s not entirely easy using my precious free time to focus on school.

Online schooling is more distracting than one might think, surrounded by things you love to do, and having to ignore it to get the things more important done. I’ve always had a difficulty during normal school to get my homework done when I get home from school because I get distracted and it’s really my only time during the day to do what I want to do. But it seems as if that’s how my daily routine has wound up to be. It’s unfortunate to say the least, and overall has been stressful.

I’ve talked with other students about this over Google meets, and we’ve all come to the same consensus that we lack tons of motivation when doing school at home.

Additionally, I find nearly no time to step away from this and haven’t given myself much time to just relax and enjoy myself without the weight of school on my chest. . . . I’m quite fully sure there are hundreds of more students who have dealt with this monstrous difficulty, and it’s been a very strenuous position to be in.

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How is COVID-19 affecting student learning?

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, initial findings from fall 2020, megan kuhfeld , megan kuhfeld senior research scientist - nwea jim soland , jim soland assistant professor, school of education and human development - university of virginia, affiliated research fellow - nwea beth tarasawa , bt beth tarasawa executive vice president of research - nwea angela johnson , aj angela johnson research scientist - nwea erik ruzek , and er erik ruzek research assistant professor, curry school of education - university of virginia karyn lewis karyn lewis director, center for school and student progress - nwea.

December 3, 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced uncertainty into major aspects of national and global society, including for schools. For example, there is uncertainty about how school closures last spring impacted student achievement, as well as how the rapid conversion of most instruction to an online platform this academic year will continue to affect achievement. Without data on how the virus impacts student learning, making informed decisions about whether and when to return to in-person instruction remains difficult. Even now, education leaders must grapple with seemingly impossible choices that balance health risks associated with in-person learning against the educational needs of children, which may be better served when kids are in their physical schools.

Amidst all this uncertainty, there is growing consensus that school closures in spring 2020 likely had negative effects on student learning. For example, in an earlier post for this blog , we presented our research forecasting the possible impact of school closures on achievement. Based on historical learning trends and prior research on how out-of-school-time affects learning, we estimated that students would potentially begin fall 2020 with roughly 70% of the learning gains in reading relative to a typical school year. In mathematics, students were predicted to show even smaller learning gains from the previous year, returning with less than 50% of typical gains. While these and other similar forecasts presented a grim portrait of the challenges facing students and educators this fall, they were nonetheless projections. The question remained: What would learning trends in actual data from the 2020-21 school year really look like?

With fall 2020 data now in hand , we can move beyond forecasting and begin to describe what did happen. While the closures last spring left most schools without assessment data from that time, thousands of schools began testing this fall, making it possible to compare learning gains in a typical, pre-COVID-19 year to those same gains during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from nearly 4.4 million students in grades 3-8 who took MAP ® Growth™ reading and math assessments in fall 2020, we examined two primary research questions:

• How did students perform in fall 2020 relative to a typical school year (specifically, fall 2019)?
• Have students made learning gains since schools physically closed in March 2020?

To answer these questions, we compared students’ academic achievement and growth during the COVID-19 pandemic to the achievement and growth patterns observed in 2019. We report student achievement as a percentile rank, which is a normative measure of a student’s achievement in a given grade/subject relative to the MAP Growth national norms (reflecting pre-COVID-19 achievement levels).

To make sure the students who took the tests before and after COVID-19 school closures were demographically similar, all analyses were limited to a sample of 8,000 schools that tested students in both fall 2019 and fall 2020. Compared to all public schools in the nation, schools in the sample had slightly larger total enrollment, a lower percentage of low-income students, and a higher percentage of white students. Since our sample includes both in-person and remote testers in fall 2020, we conducted an initial comparability study of remote and in-person testing in fall 2020. We found consistent psychometric characteristics and trends in test scores for remote and in-person tests for students in grades 3-8, but caution that remote testing conditions may be qualitatively different for K-2 students. For more details on the sample and methodology, please see the technical report accompanying this study.

In some cases, our results tell a more optimistic story than what we feared. In others, the results are as deeply concerning as we expected based on our projections.

Question 1: How did students perform in fall 2020 relative to a typical school year?

When comparing students’ median percentile rank for fall 2020 to those for fall 2019, there is good news to share: Students in grades 3-8 performed similarly in reading to same-grade students in fall 2019. While the reason for the stability of these achievement results cannot be easily pinned down, possible explanations are that students read more on their own, and parents are better equipped to support learning in reading compared to other subjects that require more formal instruction.

The news in math, however, is more worrying. The figure below shows the median percentile rank in math by grade level in fall 2019 and fall 2020. As the figure indicates, the math achievement of students in 2020 was about 5 to 10 percentile points lower compared to same-grade students the prior year.

Figure 1: MAP Growth Percentiles in Math by Grade Level in Fall 2019 and Fall 2020

Source: Author calculations with MAP Growth data. Notes: Each bar represents the median percentile rank in a given grade/term.

Question 2: Have students made learning gains since schools physically closed, and how do these gains compare to gains in a more typical year?

To answer this question, we examined learning gains/losses between winter 2020 (January through early March) and fall 2020 relative to those same gains in a pre-COVID-19 period (between winter 2019 and fall 2019). We did not examine spring-to-fall changes because so few students tested in spring 2020 (after the pandemic began). In almost all grades, the majority of students made some learning gains in both reading and math since the COVID-19 pandemic started, though gains were smaller in math in 2020 relative to the gains students in the same grades made in the winter 2019-fall 2019 period.

Figure 2 shows the distribution of change in reading scores by grade for the winter 2020 to fall 2020 period (light blue) as compared to same-grade students in the pre-pandemic span of winter 2019 to fall 2019 (dark blue). The 2019 and 2020 distributions largely overlapped, suggesting similar amounts of within-student change from one grade to the next.

Figure 2: Distribution of Within-student Change from Winter 2019-Fall 2019 vs Winter 2020-Fall 2020 in Reading

Source: Author calculations with MAP Growth data. Notes: The dashed line represents zero growth (e.g., winter and fall test scores were equivalent). A positive value indicates that a student scored higher in the fall than their prior winter score; a negative value indicates a student scored lower in the fall than their prior winter score.

Meanwhile, Figure 3 shows the distribution of change for students in different grade levels for the winter 2020 to fall 2020 period in math. In contrast to reading, these results show a downward shift: A smaller proportion of students demonstrated positive math growth in the 2020 period than in the 2019 period for all grades. For example, 79% of students switching from 3 rd to 4 th grade made academic gains between winter 2019 and fall 2019, relative to 57% of students in the same grade range in 2020.

Figure 3: Distribution of Within-student Change from Winter 2019-Fall 2019 vs. Winter 2020-Fall 2020 in Math

It was widely speculated that the COVID-19 pandemic would lead to very unequal opportunities for learning depending on whether students had access to technology and parental support during the school closures, which would result in greater heterogeneity in terms of learning gains/losses in 2020. Notably, however, we do not see evidence that within-student change is more spread out this year relative to the pre-pandemic 2019 distribution.

The long-term effects of COVID-19 are still unknown

In some ways, our findings show an optimistic picture: In reading, on average, the achievement percentiles of students in fall 2020 were similar to those of same-grade students in fall 2019, and in almost all grades, most students made some learning gains since the COVID-19 pandemic started. In math, however, the results tell a less rosy story: Student achievement was lower than the pre-COVID-19 performance by same-grade students in fall 2019, and students showed lower growth in math across grades 3 to 8 relative to peers in the previous, more typical year. Schools will need clear local data to understand if these national trends are reflective of their students. Additional resources and supports should be deployed in math specifically to get students back on track.

In this study, we limited our analyses to a consistent set of schools between fall 2019 and fall 2020. However, approximately one in four students who tested within these schools in fall 2019 are no longer in our sample in fall 2020. This is a sizeable increase from the 15% attrition from fall 2018 to fall 2019. One possible explanation is that some students lacked reliable technology. A second is that they disengaged from school due to economic, health, or other factors. More coordinated efforts are required to establish communication with students who are not attending school or disengaging from instruction to get them back on track, especially our most vulnerable students.

Finally, we are only scratching the surface in quantifying the short-term and long-term academic and non-academic impacts of COVID-19. While more students are back in schools now and educators have more experience with remote instruction than when the pandemic forced schools to close in spring 2020, the collective shock we are experiencing is ongoing. We will continue to examine students’ academic progress throughout the 2020-21 school year to understand how recovery and growth unfold amid an ongoing pandemic.

Thankfully, we know much more about the impact the pandemic has had on student learning than we did even a few months ago. However, that knowledge makes clear that there is work to be done to help many students get back on track in math, and that the long-term ramifications of COVID-19 for student learning—especially among underserved communities—remain unknown.

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• Covid 19 Essays

Covid 19 Essays (Examples)

Filter by keywords:(add comma between each), example essays.

COVID 19 and Healthcare Worker Burnout

Article Review: COVID-19 and the Mental Health Impact Upon Healthcare WorkersAmericans lauded healthcare workers as the nations heroes during the height of the pandemic. But, just like other Americans, healthcare workers too were also personally and intimately affected by the impact of COVID-19. They had to deal with the overwhelming experience of dealing with stress, sickness, and death daily, in a manner which many of them were unprepared for before the crisis. Hall & Powers (2022) remind the reader in their article Addressing the mental health impact of the COVID pandemic on healthcare workers, America is now facing three years…...

mla References Hall, E.J. & Powers, R. E. (2022, June 23) Addressing the mental health impact of the COVID

Covid 19 Pandemic Midterm Project

Covid 19 Pandemic Continues To Threaten the Survival of Human Service OrganizationsCovid 19 has impacted the physical, mental, and social lives of human beings from all dimensions. Despite the growing needs of social services firms or community-based organizations (CBOs), they struggle to fulfill those needs (Tsega et al., 2020). They have dwindling resources to meet the requirements of such individuals. Government and funding agencies are also out of techniques and funds to meet the demands of these contracts or the costs of delivering pertinent services.There are three main challenges that CBOs are facing in times of crisis: long-term financial survival,…...

mla References Banks, S., Cai, T., de Jonge, E., Shears, J., Shum, M., Sobocan, A.M., Strom, K., Truell, R., Uriz, M.J. & Weinberg, M. (2020, June 29). Ethical challenges for social workers during Covid 19: A global perspective. The International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW).   https://www.ifsw.org/ethical-challenges-for-social-workers-during-covid-19-a-global-perspective/ 

COVID 19 Pandemic and Interest Rates

COVID-19 Pandemic The coronavirus pandemic is a grave global health threat, significantly disrupting everyday life and the economy in Canada as well as everywhere else across the world. While all Canadian economic sectors have been adversely impacted, a few like the travel, hospitality, service, and energy industry have been especially hit hard. Necessary public health measures are taken for containing virus spread, including the closedown of educational institutions, social distancing, and lockdowns, and emergency states, themselves greatly and adversely affect economic activity. But a key point to note is that though the effect is huge, it will, nevertheless, pass soon. Experts…...

mla References Bains, J. (2020, June 3). Bank of Canada says COVID-19 impact has peaked, holds interest rate at 0.25 percent. Yahoo Finance - Stock Market Live, Quotes, Business & Finance News.   Bank of Canada. (2020). COVID-19: Actions to support the economy and financial system.  https://www.bankofcanada.ca/markets/market-operations-liquidity-provision/covid-19-actions-support-economy-financial-system/  CBC News. (2020, June 3). Bank of Canada holds rate steady, saying COVID-19 economic impact \'appears to have peaked\' | CBC news.  https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/bank-of-canada-rate-decision-1.5596399  https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/bank-of-canada-says-covid-19-impact-has-peaked-holds-interest-rate-at-025-per-cent-142812681.html 

COVID 19 Vaccinations

1) What is the name of the article? Where was it published? Who is the author and what are his or her credentials?a. Name: Public health officials are failing to communicate effectively about AstraZenecab. Published: May 12, 2021c. Author: Joel Abramsd. Author Credentials: Manager of Outreach at The Conversation US2) Post a link to the article or the actual article with your assignmenta. https://theconversation.com/public-health-officials-are-failing-to-communicate-effectively-about-astrazeneca-1603403) How did you search for or find it (search words, reading, etc)?I searched for the article using Google. I was particularly interested in vaccinations and their overall impact on society. This was compounded by the exception…...

mla References 1. Abbasi J. COVID-19 and mRNA Vaccines-First Large Test for a New Approach. JAMA. 2020 Sep 3. PubMed:   Full-text: https://pubmed.gov/32880613 . 2. Alter G, Seder R: The Power of Antibody-Based Surveillance. N Engl J Med 2020, published 1 September. Full-text:   https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMe2028079 .

Financial Corporates COVID 19 Pandemic

COVID-19 Pandemic on Financial CorporatesA dividend can be defined as the dispersion of some of the companys incomes to a group of eligible shareholders as the firms board of directors determines it. Familiar stakeholders of dividend-paying companies are typically qualified if they possess the merchandiser before the date of ex-dividend. The bonus may be reimbursed out as coinage or as an arrangement of added merchandise. Additionally, fringe benefits are expenditures carried out by publicly recorded businesses as a prize to depositors for depositing their cash into the project. The statements of dividend payouts are usually followed by a proportional rise…...

mla Work Cited Allen, Franklin, and Roni Michaely. “Dividend policy.” Handbooks in operations research and management science 9 (1995): 793-837. Barr, Michael S., Howell E. Jackson, and Margaret E. Tahyar. “The Financial Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Available at SSRN 3666461 (2020).

Impact of COVID 19 on Pregnant Couples Persuasive Speech

Conquering COVID – A Guide for a Pregnant Couple Persuasive Speech Outline Topic: Conquering COVID – A Guide for a Pregnant Couple 1. Introduction a. Does COVID-19 hit harder when one is pregnant? If a pregnant woman is affected, will the virus damage the baby? b. Many of us have probably seen daily coronavirus updates and are aware of some of the measures we can take to prevent us from contracting the virus. We have received lots of information on wearing masks, social distancing, and hand hygiene practices. We have also heard about some of the measures taken to help one recover/conquer the virus…...

mla Works Cited Ablow, Jennifer C., and Elinor Sullivan. “Pregnancy during a Pandemic: The Stress of COVID-19 on Pregnant Women and New Mothers Is Showing.” The Conversation, The Conversation Africa, Inc., 29 Sept. 2020,  https://theconversation.com/pregnancy-during-a-pandemic-the-stress-of-covid-19-on-pregnant-women-and-new-mothers-is-showing-142466  . Vogel, Gretchen. “New Coronavirus Leaves Pregnant Women with Wrenching Choices-but Little Data to Guide Them.” Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 27 Mar. 2020,  https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/new-coronavirus-leaves-pregnant-women-wrenching-choices-little-data-guide-them . Ha, Lan. “Coronavirus and Childbirth: Future Baby Boom or Bust?” Euromonitor International - Market Research Blog, Euromonitor, 1 Oct. 2020,  https://blog.euromonitor.com/coronavirus-and-childbirth-future-baby-boom-or-bust/ . Smith, Kate. “Many Couples Are Putting Pregnancy Plans on Hold Because of the Pandemic.” CBS News, CBS Interactive, 10 Aug. 2020,  https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-19-pandemic-pregnancy-delay/ .

How Covid 19 has impacted'supply chains in American industry

Simon Property Group is one of the premier shopping center operators in the world. The firm looks to own, develop, and manage high quality shopping and entertainment destinations. The company is also looking to transition its high value real estate assets into mixed used destinations. Here, the company will not only provide shopping, dining, and entertainment options, but also residential and office experiences. As of its latest annual shareholder filing, Simon owns properties in 37 states and Puerto Rico. COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on the overall retail industry and Simon Property Group. The fear of contracting the virus along…...

mla References: 1. Agrawal N, Smith SA (2009). Mulit-location inventory models for retail supply chain management. In: Agrawal N, Smith SA (ed) Retail supply chain management. International Series in Operations Research & Management Science. Springer, Boston, MA 2. Alvarado UY, Kotzab H (2001) Supply chain management: The integration of logistics in marketing. Ind Market Manag 30(2):163–198 3. Bhattacharjee S, Ramesh R (2000) A multi-period profit maximizing model for retail supply chain management: An integration of demand and supply-side mechanisms. Eur J Oper Res 122: 584–601 4. Kaufmann, P. J., Donthu, N. and Brooks, C. M. (2000)) ‘Multi-unit retail site selection processes: Incorporating opening delays and unidentified competition’, Journal of Retailing, Vol. 76, No. 1. 5. Kumar, V. and Karande, K. (2000) ‘The effect of retail store environment on retailer performance’, Journal of Business Research, Vol. 49, No. 2

Hate Crimes against Asians The Surge in COVID 19

Introduction In China, the city of Wuhan is believed to be ground zero of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak, which started in late December 2019. The virus has since spread globally, with cases of infection reported in almost all world countries. The United States, in particular, has been heavily affected by the spread of the virus, with the country's death toll in the hundreds of thousands and a still greater number of the infected. Amidst the worry and fear of the viral spread, several reports of harassment and even physical violence to Asian Americans have sprung up across the nation…...

mla References Aziz, Sahar. "Anti-Asian racism must be stopped before it is normalized." Al Jazeera (2020). Behrmann, Savannah. "'Chinatown is not part of China': Trump's tweet at Pelosi is met with criticism online." USA TODAY, April 16, (2020). Berman, Robby. "COVID-19 and the surge in anti-Asian hate crimes." Medical New Today, August 2 (2020). Fallows, James. "A reporter's notebook. A 2020-time capsule. The Atlantic, March 18 (2020). Gover, Angela R., Shannon B. Harper, and Lynn Langton. "Anti-Asian hate crime during the CoViD-19 pandemic: exploring the reproduction of inequality." American journal of criminal justice 45.4 (2020): 647-667.

Sample COVID 19 Marketing Program

Introduction: As the holiday season approaches, it is imperative that standards related to social distancing and PPE are adhered to. This is particularly true as Americans enter a critical holiday season where family gathers are scheduled to occur over the next few months. Due to this occurrence, a community outreach program is needed to help mitigate the impacts of the virus on local communities. Through a concerted door to door campaign, we aim to help lower the threat of the virus, educated the community, and ultimately save lives. The campaign will first consist of door to door outreach, talking specifically…...

mla References: Sterling, C. (1991). American Electronic Media: A Survey Bibliography. American Studies International, 29(2), 28-54. Retrieved December 5, 2020, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/41280280

How NHL Responded to COVID 19

The National Hockey League and their COVID-19 ResponseThe COVID-19 global pandemic has significantly impacted lives and livelihoods across the globe as the virus continues to spread worldwide and new variants emerge. COVID-19 has essentially affected every sector of the economy and society as governments are forced to adopt measures to contain its spread. One of the areas that have been affected by the spread of the virus is sports. National sports leagues such as the National Hockey League (NHL) have been affected. In the initial stages of the pandemic, NHL suspended all sporting activities just like other national sports leagues…...

mla References Global CAD. (2020). Managing your organization successfully during COVID-19. Retrieved August 17, 2021, from   https://globalcad.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/GlobalCAD-CovidEnglish_April15v2.pdf  Gregory, S. (2020). The NHL had 0 positive COVID-19 tests throughout postseason. We asked Commissioner Gary Bettman what we can learn from that. Time. Retrieved August 17, 2021, from   https://time.com/5894175/nhl-gary-bettman-stanley-cup-covid/ 

Effect of COVID 19 on Teacher Burnout

Findings and ResultsThe purpose of this study is to examine the impact of COVID-19 on teacher burnout. The study identifies the COVID-19 global pandemic as an example of environmental factors that contribute to or influence teacher burnout. This research was conducted on grounds that teacher well-being remains one of the most critical issues in the United States educational sector. Teacher well-being has gained interest in the U.S. because of the increased diversity and demands across schools and classrooms. Moreover, given the nature of their work, teachers are predisposed to a series of stressors including lack of emotional support, student discipline…...

mla References Buchanan, J. (2012). Telling tales out of school: Exploring why former teachers are not returning to the classroom. Australian Journal of Education, 56(2), 205-217.

How Does COVID-19 Affect Healthcare Economically

Annotated Bibliography Cutler, D. (2020). How will COVID-19 Affect the health care economy? JAMA, 323(22), 2237-2238. DOI: 10.1001/JAMA.2020.7308 The author discusses the economic and healthcare crisis the COVID-19 pandemic created. The projections drawn in the paper predict a 10 to 25% contraction of the US economy in the second quarter. The writer asserts that the United States has entered a COVID-19 recession. The pandemic's economic effect is attributed to the federal government's failure to provide adequate testing facilities. Pak, A., Adegboye, O., Adekunle, A., Rahman, K., McBryde, E., & Eisen, D. (2020). Economic consequences of the COVID-19 outbreak: The need for epidemic preparedness.…...

mla Lenzen, M., Li, M., Malik, A., Pomponi, F., Sun, Y-Y., Wiedmann, T, et al. (2020) Global socio-economic losses and environmental gains from the Coronavirus pandemic. PLoS ONE 15(7).  https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0235654  The consequences of the pandemic have affected social and economic conditions, which have changed society. Consequences such as lockdowns global reductions in production and consumption have engendered a cascading effect along the global supply chains. This paper emphasizes the implementation of preparedness measures, which will cause the least social changes for the population and low economic disruption for businesses. Chudik, A., Mohaddes, K., Pesaran, H., Raissi, M., Rebucci, A. (2020). Economic consequences of Covid-19: A counterfactual multi-country analysis. VOXEU. Retrieved from  https://voxeu.org/article/economic-consequences-covid-19-multi-country-analysis  This article highlights the consequences of the pandemic and establishes ways of analyzing the pandemic. Considering the disruptions in the interconnected world economy, an empirical economic analysis will be suitable for examining the pandemic\'s nature. In completing the empirical economic analysis, the following key elements must be included: the identification of such an event, an account for the non-linear effects of the pandemic, a consideration of the pandemic\'s global cascading effect, and quantification of the uncertainties surrounding the forecast of such events.

Florida Hospital COVID 19 Crisis

Good Health Hospital: COVID-19 CrisisWith any disease, there are three basic levels of addressing the crisis, that of primary care (prevention), management during the early stages, and then more intensive tertiary-level treatment when the disease has become more advanced. With COVID-19, the healthcare system has been dealing with several critical factors regarding the pandemic. As well as the disease itself, there has been an evolution of new variants such as Omicron, which has been infecting already-vaccinated people, and resistance to the idea of vaccination at all. The speed with which the pandemic is intensifying is of particular concern.According to Salvador-Carulla…...

mla References Khaliq, A.A. (2018). Managerial epidemiology: Principles and applications. Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett.

More Beds in the ICU Needed to Fight COVID 19

Mitigating the COVID Crisis in the ERWhat can be done to mitigate the COVID-19 type crisis in America's emergency rooms? To mitigate the COVID-19 crisis in America's emergency rooms, several actions can be taken. First, increasing the number of hospital beds and staffing levels can aid in managing the high demand for medical care. This can be done through the construction of temporary facilities and the recruitment of healthcare workers from outside the region (Berlinger, 2020). Second, strengthening the supply chain for personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical supplies can ensure that healthcare workers have the resources they need…...

mla References Berlinger, N., Wynia, M., Powell, T., Hester, D. M., Milliken, A., Fabi, R., & Jenks, N. P. (2020). Ethical framework for health care institutions responding to novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) guidelines for institutional ethics services responding to COVID-19. The Hastings Center, 12.

How the Ethics Challenges Facing Accountants will Change Post Covid 19

AbstractBusinesses of all sizes and types have suffered from the adverse effects of the ongoing Covid-19 global pandemic, and the world is still facing a fundamental existential threat. Nevertheless, efficacious vaccines have been developed and increasing numbers of consumers are recognizing the need to be vaccinated against this deadly disease to the point where many observers can see the light at the end of the pandemic tunnel. Although no one can predict the future with absolute precision, an article written by the Working Group formed by the International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) and national ethics standard setters (NSS)…...

mla References Five ethics challenges that will intensify as the pandemic wanes. (2021, May 10). International Ethics Standards Board for Accountants (IESBA) and National Standard Setters (NSS) from Australia, Canada, China, South Africa, the U.K., and the U.S. working group. Retrieved from   https://www.ethicsboard.org/news-events/2021-05/5-ethics-challenges-will-intensify-pandemic-wanes .

Need assistance developing essay topics related to Covid 19. Can you offer any guidance?

Of course! Here are some essay topic ideas related to Covid-19: 1. The impact of Covid-19 on mental health: Discuss how the pandemic has affected individuals' mental well-being and explore potential solutions for addressing mental health challenges during this time. 2. The disparities in healthcare access during the Covid-19 pandemic: Analyze how different communities have been disproportionately affected by the virus and delve into the systemic inequalities that have exacerbated health disparities. 3. The economic consequences of Covid-19: Examine the economic fallout of the pandemic, including job losses, business closures, and financial strains on individuals and families. Consider potential strategies for economic recovery....

Essay Topics Related to COVID-19 Introduction The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on individuals, societies, and economies worldwide. Its multifaceted nature presents a wealth of topics suitable for academic exploration. This essay provides guidance on developing engaging and insightful essay topics related to COVID-19, offering a comprehensive range of perspectives to choose from. Health and Medical Impacts The Impact of COVID-19 on Public Health: Assessing the Global Response and Preparedness Long-Term Health Effects of COVID-19: Exploring Physical, Mental, and Social Consequences The Role of Vaccines in Combating COVID-19: Ethical, Scientific, and Policy Considerations The Impact of COVID-19 on Healthcare Systems: Resource....

How has COVID-19 impacted global travel and tourism trends?

COVID-19 has had a significant impact on global travel and tourism trends. The pandemic has led to widespread travel restrictions, border closures, and changes in consumer behavior, all of which have had a major effect on the travel and tourism industry. Some of the key impacts of COVID-19 on global travel and tourism trends include: 1. Travel restrictions and border closures: Many countries have implemented travel restrictions and closed their borders to international visitors in an effort to contain the spread of the virus. This has led to a dramatic decrease in international travel and tourism and has had a significant....

COVID-19's Devastating Impact on Global Travel and Tourism: A Trend Analysis The COVID-19 pandemic has unleashed a seismic shock on the global travel and tourism industry, leaving a trail of unprecedented disruption and economic turmoil. As governments imposed travel restrictions and lockdowns to contain the virus, the once-bustling travel sector came to a screeching halt, with dire consequences for businesses and destinations worldwide. Here's an in-depth analysis of the profound impact of COVID-19 on global travel and tourism trends: Crumbling Travel Demand and Economic Losses The pandemic has decimated travel demand, leading to a catastrophic decline in international arrivals. According to the World....

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An Escalating War in the Middle East

Tensions are on a knife edge after israel carried out a strike on the hezbollah leader allegedly behind an attack in the golan heights..

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Over the past few days, the simmering feud between Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, has reached a critical moment.

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On today’s episode

Ben Hubbard , the Istanbul bureau chief for The New York Times.

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Israel says it killed a Hezbollah commander , Fuad Shukr, in an airstrike near Beirut.

The Israeli military blamed Mr. Shukr for an assault on Saturday that killed 12 children and teenagers in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights.

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