COVID-19’s impact on students: the good, the bad and the ugly

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The topic of COVID-19 and its impacts are still a pertinent discussion — although after two years of the pandemic, Penn State students say it’s a mixed bag.

According to a Pew Research Center survey conducted Feb. 16–21, 2021, 32% of adults aged 18–29 reported high psychological distress.

Megan Hutchens, a licensed counselor at The Highlands in State College, described the issue of COVID-19 and its impact on mental health as “multidimensional.”

“I guess the biggest piece I go to is just this idea of isolation and how that affects our brain,” said Hutchens. “That’s not in large doses necessarily great for any of us.”

Demetrius Merkey (sophomore-German/Russian), said that the hardest part of the pandemic for him was the lack of socialization, but things became better after he was vaccinated.

Merkey observed that people, many of whom weren’t against the vaccines, have been “tired” of the situation.

“I don’t think anyone has not been negatively impacted,” said Jackson Farris (senior-cybersecurity). “I have noticed that others have had struggles with conforming to changes in routine…much infrastructure was shut down…”

The sudden change in day-to-day life and having to conform to the closure of the university had been a major stressor for Penn State students.

“We didn’t have much prep for it. And so first it came as a shock to the system,” said Hutchens. “I think our nervous systems were cued in, this is something’s wrong, something’s not safe, which puts us on kind of a hypervigilant, anxious space.”

For a while, Jameswell Zhang (senior-cybersecurity) found himself in this “anxious space.”

Initially, Zhang thought the pandemic was scary, and he did everything he could to “eliminate the risks of exposure.”

“My stepdad is diabetic, and then my mom is overall just very concerned about it,” said Zhang. “So, whenever I’d go back home, it’s like very tense.”

A similar sentiment was echoed by Amanda Brake (senior-journalism), who was concerned about her family members who are high-risk.

However, Brake said that the impact of COVID-19 on her mental health “hasn’t entirely been good or bad” and the more lax, online classes allowed her to think about her future.

Regarding online and asynchronous classes, Farris said that these modes of learning aligned with his “personal learning philosophy and learning lifestyle.”

Hutchens said that stepping back from everyday life has given people perspective.

“It forces us to be in the uncomfortable and when we get into that space of that uncomfortable, we are automatically going to grow — and maybe that means we grow in our interest,” said Hutchens.

While it’s safe to conclude that the negatives generally outweigh the positives in regard to the pandemic’s impact on students, it had allowed some students to adapt to the situation and grow.

Zhang said that he had received his vaccine and booster and had come to accept COVID-19 as a “background part of life.”

Charlie Plante (freshman-journalism) described their experiences as “painful” as they gradually learned the severity of the situation while struggling with their own mental health, as well as the death of a family member who died from an illness unrelated to COVID-19.

“The hospitals were overflowing…I didn’t understand the severity of the situation until like three months in…and I was like…this is actually a very big problem,” said Plante.

Despite the worry and uncertainty, Plante said that the pandemic gave them the time and space for themselves, and that the pause that COVID-19 created gave their father time to grieve their stepmother.

“It created pause for us,” said Hutchens. “And I think anytime we can create that, we’re going to see shifts, we’re going to see changes. Some might say good, and some might say challenging, depending on where you are in life.”