The Impact of COVID-19 on University Student Lifestyle - WHAT?

 

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The Impact of COVID-19 on University Student Lifestyle - WHAT?

written by Nicholas Tan Kae Jer

    The cases of Covid-19 have been increasing rapidly in our country, Malaysia. Covid-19 which is also known as the coronavirus disease is one of the deadliest diseases to exist in our world due to its rate of infection. The effect of this infectious disease for humans is very serious such as severe cough, weak body, loss of taste, and more. This disease has a high probability of even causing death as well. Thus, everyone will seldom go out from the home to avoid themselves from spreading and also getting infected by it. Due to this Covid-19 disease, everyone’s lifestyle has changed drastically, and this also includes university students. 

Firstly, the Covid-19 pandemic has made university students switch to online learning instead of attending a physical class as it can reduce the incidence of Covid-19 disease and also most importantly to avoid close contact with each other. Thus, every university student needs to be prepared with at least one of the end devices and network equipment to start their own online learning such as laptop, PC, tablet, and smartphone. There are two methods in online learning, which is synchronous learning and asynchronous learning. Synchronous learning classes run in real-time, where students and their lecturer attend their online meetings but from different locations. While for asynchronous learning, classes run on a more relaxed schedule, with students accessing class materials during different hours and locations. For example, the videos would be pre-recorded and the slides for their lessons would be prepared earlier and they could access it according to their timetable or any time they’re free to learn.

Moreover, during their online classes, some of the university students could easily lose their interest which leads them to not pay attention to their lecturer and continue doing something that's unbeneficial such as playing games, scrolling through their phone, and watching television. This is because the lecturers can't observe their student’s actions unless the student's microphone or camera is on. In addition to that, it would also cause some university students to cheat during their examination by referring to their notes or discussing with their friends by chatting or having a conference call. Moreover, during the online classes, some students also feel bored because they seldom communicate with their lecturer and their classmates. This could make the students to be uninterested in their classes and lead to unsatisfactory grades for them. Besides that, university students can’t enjoy the real life of living in their university dormitory as normal university students. In addition, they would not be able to experience the facilities provided such as the gym equipment, sports equipment, and computer lab. Even if they happen to be in their university they would not be able to organize fun activities during this period. It is a pity for the current semester of university students to not be able to enjoy these moments. However, some of the university students feel happy about this problem. This is because they wouldn't need to pay for the university service and equipment fees to the university as they can save their money for their future events.

Lastly, since university students still can’t go back to their university campus it would also be difficult for the new intake university students to meet each other and make new friends after they have started attending their lessons because most of the university students live in different states from Peninsular Malaysia to East Malaysia. As a result, this would make the new intake university students have a hard time finding a group for their group assignment or even finding a friend for them that they could rely on. Even, some of the senior university student’s friendships are getting weaker because they rarely meet with each other and have not communicated with any of their university friends in a long time. 

In conclusion, this Covid-19 pandemic issue has affected everyone’s lifestyle, especially university students. As successful university students, university students must find a lot of methods that can improve their learning skills despite facing various problems and easily adapt to their solutions. Besides that, they must protect themselves during this period as the virus could spread easily to anyone even through the surrounding air.

Reference :
1) Doug Wintemute. “Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Classes: What’s the Difference?” The Best Schools. Publication August 16,2021. Last Modified September 17,2021. https://thebestschools.org/resources/synchronous-vs-asynchronous-programs-courses/ 

2) Wework. “The impact of COVID-19 on the university student experience.” Wework. Publication February 3, 2021. Last Modified February 3, 2021. https://www.wework.com/ideas/research-insights/research-studies/the-impact-of-covid-19-on-the-university-student-experience