Corona affects international students even more than Dutch students. Especially those who arrived just before the lockdown. Students and a Lecturer/Senior Study Career Coach of HAN International Communication in Arnhem share their Covid-19 experiences with SAM.
Written by Claudia Fitsch
Amy Le (20) from Vietnam and Jin Jing Ding (24) from China started at HAN University of Applied Sciences in February 2020. They just got to know HAN and their neighborhood in Presikhaaf when the shutdown came. Amy: “I didn’t know my classmates. I didn’t have friends yet. No school, no gym. All I had was lots of time.” Ding nods: “The first weeks I only went outside to buy ingredients for meals. I was scared.”
There was panic amongst student and parents. Ding: “Some of my classmates flew straight back home before flights were cancelled.” Those who remained felt locked up and often lonely, far away from family and friends. Very cautious not to get the virus because their families couldn’t reach them. Ding: “I’m an only child. I can’t get sick.”
“Making friends is difficult. Online you have no connection”
Interaction dropped
Dasha Surovtseva (21), from Kazakhstan, is a 4th year student. “After the lockdown, the interaction with school dropped immediately. I kept to my room. On my birthday, friends left presents at my doorstep. It was weird. I had to re-invent my life, didn’t want to go anywhere. Now I still don’t because you have to wear masks and make reservations.”
Teachers and coaches couldn’t inform their students what to do, since for them it wasn’t clear what decisions the board of HAN University was to make for the first period. “Transferring lessons online took a while,” says Lecturer and Senior Study Career Coach Miriam Zwaan. Students were very annoyed by the skipping of the third exam period in March. That meant they had to do a lot of exams in the fourth period.
Zwaan looked after her students: “At the beginning of the lockdown, some of them only had me to talk to. A few were just sixteen or seventeen years old, worked very hard to be the best in their class so they could study abroad, felt responsible to be successful. Some parents lost their income because of corona. Their children couldn’t afford to pay for a room in the Netherlands anymore.”
Semi lockdown
The students made the best of it, watching movies or taking up hobbies. The lack of social life they compensated for by calling their parents. Amy and Ding got to know their flat mates in Helix. After the lockdown everybody felt relieved to leave the house, have some sort of social life. The academic year at HAN University started with hybrid education: partially at school, partially online.
Now there is this second ‘semi’ lockdown: less tough but far from ideal. Dutch corona rules often change and lack logic. Ding: “You have to wear a mask at school but can take it off when sitting in the classroom. I feel uncomfortable about that. But there is this peer pressure. I have difficulties if I’m the only person to wear the mask, so I adapt.”
Online no connection
Education in a foreign language is extra tricky online. Matters enter your brain not as quickly and as good compared to ‘real life’ lessons. It’s a challenge working with people you don’t know, from several countries and cultures with different accents. Dasha: “Making friends is difficult. Online you have no connection.”
She is in the final semester of her studies, preparing her thesis. Besides, she works 24 hours a week as a digital designer at a train travel company. “I only was three times in the office, so I work with people I‘ve hardly or never even met. I’m sitting behind my computer all day for work and study. My lower back hurts and I feel like a potato. I miss being outside.”
Advantages
There are some advantages to the new way of life though. Students who went back to their own country can follow lessons online. Some who live far from HAN University save traveling time. One of the students: “I can focus better, working home alone.”
If you are an international student who can use some support or company, check out HAN student support or Arnhem Student Point.
