The Effect of a Global Pandemic on College Students…
By: Bradyn Zula
Tags: College Experience, College, Mental Illness Awareness, Pandemic, Mental Illness

The Effect of a Global Pandemic on College Students…

Photo by Paolo Nicolello on Unsplash

If there is one thing every undergraduate student can relate to after the concluding semester, it is the struggles of navigating college in the midst of a pandemic. Not only are most colleges entirely online, but even those that are housing students on campus are monitoring student’s activities like a hawk.

College comes with many new challenges that most students do not foresee. Moving out of your parent’s house is difficult as it is, but on top of transitioning to life on your own, you also must manage a full course load and attempt to build relationships during the most difficult time since the Great Depression or World War II.

If your university is anything like mine, campus events are few and very far between. My small university in the outskirts of Chicago only allowed 200 residential students on campus this past semester. I am sure you can picture what that looked like.

Campus events had incredibly low student turn out due to the campus-wide mask and social distancing mandates. I, like many other students, found it increasingly difficult to build relationships during this semester.

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One of the many beautiful perks about being a college student is the freedom of socialization that occurs when you are away from your parents. No more curfews or rules, with which comes a lot more responsibility.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, every aspect of socialization on college campuses was stripped from students. In fact, most of my graduating high school class reported, via an Instagram poll on my personal account, that they spent more time in their dorm room than socializing in this last semester.

The adverse effects of this pandemic on college experience are beginning to reveal themselves as colleges are preparing for another pandemic safe semester. My prediction is that with the dissatisfaction of many students with their university’s COVID-19 response, there will be a severely heightened number of transfer students and drop-outs going into next semester.

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Since the lockdowns beginning in March, we have seen an astronomical increase in depression in college aged students both domestically as well as internationally.

The facts demonstrate that human beings thrive off of each other. We fundamentally need to interact with other human beings on a regular basis to survive. Mental illness is on the rise and what are we actually doing in these times to fight it?

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One may simply say, “well we have social media, don’t we?” While social media is a large component of college-aged people’s lives, face to face socialization is still a large majority of college culture today. Without this interaction, many students find themselves lost in their own heads and watching way too much Netflix. These are not healthy behaviors and have shown to have direct links to mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety.

The response to this global pandemic will have harmful effects for years to come. The increase in depression and anxiety amongst teens is only one piece of the pie.

The international economic decline were to be expected, but the decrease in international mental health is something that will exponentially grow for numerous decades due to our response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The question we should be asking ourselves as we close out this long, very difficult year is, are the ends going to justify the means?