How COVID-19 pandemic affected Students?

COVID-19 has hit us hard. Countries across the globe are currently in partial or complete lockdown dealing with this Corona Virus Pandemic.

Every community is affected by COVID-19 Pandemic whether student, government employee, private company employee, or daily wage laborer. Not only in India but worldwide 91% of the student community is heavily affected. 

In the last few weeks, a lot of fresher lost their job offers, internships, and research training.

According to an article by The Hindu, Over 122 million people in India lost their jobs in April, according to estimates from the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy. 

Around 75% of them were small traders and wage-laborers.

The average employment reduced from an estimated 404 million during 2019-20 to 396 million in March 2020. In April it came down to 282 million (122 million estimated job losses).

Not only the existing jobs were lost, but a lot of students also got revocation of the Indian and abroad job offers.

Coming to the student’s community, schools and higher educational institutions have been shut down in several countries affected by Covid-19 to curb the spread of the infection. 

According to the UNESCO report, this has impacted more than 157 crore students across 191 countries.

In India, more than 32 crore students have been affected by the various restrictions and the nationwide lockdown, which was imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 25 March.

The report notes that students from classes 9 to 12 were most severely impacted by this lockdown. 

More than 13 crore children fall in this bracket in India, which is also the level at which students write the board exams. 

Every community of the world is heavily affected and the post-COVID time is not going to be easy for most of us. 

From several parts of the country India, a lot of workers are getting back to their homes. Job offers are not going to be so easy for most fresh college graduates and the lifestyle is also not going to be the same. 

A lot of things will change. While in this lockdown phase, most of the people are upskilling themselves, trying out new hobbies, and getting the time to ponder over their mistakes and decisions and many of the poor laborers in different parts of the country, still figuring out how will they get back to their home traveling so much distance amidst lockdown.

While students still need to work hard and get things done, the job seekers are looking to find out other ways to earn like, working from home, blogging, YouTube channels, tutoring, and staring their own businesses.

Here is how the students can choose to move on from this pandemic and start a new journey of life.

What a student should do?

Be productive, is the keyword often said by many people on LinkedIn, Quora and Instagram. People are often posting updates on social media with their new skills.

Let’s not make it a big deal. While staying in college, going to school, playing with friends, and going out keeps a student busy and it nurtures a good state of mind.

But being at home always, not able to meet friends and not able to play outdoor games is making us mentally sick. 

It is true that most of the students are trying to be productive, picking up new skills, online courses, and working on some awesome projects.

However, if you as a student are not able to be much productive then you don’t need to be sad or overthink. 

Just keep your mind free and don’t let any negative thoughts hit you. We are good even if we are mentally healthy. 

Depression and anxiety are common among students regarding their future. 

We all are suffering from this and we need to be sure to keep ourselves strong enough to get going. 

3 ways COVID 19 is changing our lifestyle:

1. An ongoing University of Southern California study published its first round of results in March, reporting that the coronavirus had already created significant shifts in people’s behavior. 

Among the top findings: 85 percent of people worldwide reported washing their hands or using sanitizer more often than before, and 61 percent reported following social distancing guidelines.

2. School students are trying to develop a habit to study on their own. While most of the students are joining online classes by respective schools, some are still studying from their own.

Many universities and colleges in India have already called off the end of this semester.

From this pandemic, it is clear that the education system will revolve. Instead of relying on the college and universities for covering the study materials, students from now on will try to do it on their own. 

The scope of online education will improve and many students will be self-dependent for higher education.

3. College fresh graduates, who got their jobs revoked are still figuring out to get a new job from remote and some are working as a freelancer. According to a report published in Forbes,

Three-quarters of freelancers say pay rates remain stable despite COVID. The remainder lowered rates.

Payoneer found the average 2020 freelance hourly rate was higher than in 2018.

Some started working on their own ideas like blogging, YouTube channel, etc. and making revenue.

Conclusion: 

COVID-19 is surely affecting our lifestyle. While in India, the number of confirmed cases from the Corona Virus is still increasing, we need to keep ourselves going by making suitable changes in our daily behavior.

We all want to see the world, when COVID-19 ends, however, it may take several months from now.

Life will go and surely one day we will be able to make a better world out of this pandemic.

Don’t let your motivation down. Keep doing something at least to keep yourself healthy.