Zoom University: Nine students share how the pandemic has affected their studies--and their futures.

• Date: 01 September 2020
• Author: Girten, Nicole

Almost every college student in America has had their education, and possibly their plans for the future, disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. But each student has a different story. Here are nine of them.

KIRA ALBIEZ

AGE: 26

SCHOOL: Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing (Baltimore, MD)

PROGRAM: Master of Science, nursing (accelerated program)

STATUS: Recent graduate

Kira Albiez's final semester of her nursing master's program at Johns Hopkins was supposed to be focused on getting hands-on practice, shadowing nurses in clinics and hospitals. "The clinical portion of our classes is really important--it's where we learn to interact with patients," she said. When hospitals implemented social-distancing measures, and her program shifted to mostly online classes, that real-world training was dramatically scaled back. It happened in other programs, too. "I have friends at other nursing programs who aren't even getting to do any in-person trials," she said. She credits her school for finagling a way to get students into hospitals and clinics, even if their hours were greatly reduced.

There have been other drawbacks. Some of their remaining course work, which would have typically involved role-playing scenarios with a dummy or an actor as the patient, didn't translate well to online learning. It was isolating to no longer see her classmates and friends. "This program, like most, is super intensive and really, really hard work," she said, but it's usually made more manageable by the camaraderie. "It's weird to not see some of those people anymore." It helps, she said, that she's dating someone who's also in nursing school and knows what she's going through.

After graduating in August, she's lined up to start working as a nurse at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. She's excited to finally start helping on the frontlines, but she also feels a bit of trepidation. "Part of me is, like, missing out on these last few months of clinical experiences puts me in a weird spot where I don't feel as prepared." --GH

SILVIA ROJAS

AGE: 22

SCHOOL: Trinity University (San Antonio, TX)

PROGRAM: Bachelor's, marketing and political science

STATUS: Senior

In early March, Silvia Rojas left Texas for a semester abroad in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She was excited to explore the city, and the larger region, but three weeks after her arrival she found herself quarantined indefinitely. Argentina went into lockdown, banning nonresidents from traveling, to stop the spread of the coronavirus. Her study-abroad program was canceled, and the opportunity to travel was gone. Luckily, Rojas had an uncle in Argentina who let her stay with him, but his apartment building didn't technically allow visitors during the lockdown. She was able to get into the building, but didn't want to risk leaving. "We're just scared that if I go out and I want to go back in, they're going to tell me no," she said in July. "I literally have not left at all" since March, she said.

For a while, it looked like a Trump administration policy announced in early July, banning foreign students from the United States, would keep her from going back to Texas in the fall. Rojas, who grew up in Honduras, was studying at Trinity University on an F-1 student visa. The administration's new plan was to allow international students to enter (or remain in) the country only if they had in-person classes, so Rojas was scrambling to ensure that at least one of her classes would meet in person. Then, in the face of intense criticism and lawsuits from top universities, the administration reversed its position.

Now, she'd be legally able to come back to the U.S., but her parents would rather she not return to Texas, where COVID-19 cases spiked this summer. So until...