Covid-19 has taken millions of lives, in many ways changed how we live our lives. And students have been particularly impacted by the pandemic. Being stuck at home in front of the computer screen is not something young people can dream of. So this period has led to many young students feeling anxious, stressed and dismotivated. We asked a number of students what they feel about the current crisis and what the near future might look like for Ukraine.
Diana Bondarenko- journalism student of Taras Shevchenko National University. Like art, reading books, meeting interesting people and developing myself.
I’m a second year student and for 2 years now have been studying online. At first I felt some resilience- I wanted so much to study in the normal way. But the Covid situation doesn’t allow us to do it. Students must adjust to distant learning. Of course I would have wanted to make the most of student life, meet in person my professors and classmates.
Personally for me the lockdown doesn’t bring anything negative, since I’m a student now and most of my time is focused on studying. So if you get a vaccine now, you can visit shopping walls, food markets, and go abroad.
Of course the world will get rid of the pandemic. But I don’t know when. Hope it’ll happen in the near future! )
Natalia Starepravo, journalism student at Ukrainian Catholic University ( Lviv). Author of religious texts and radio programs, passionate about photography and podcasting.
The coronavirus pandemic has shown us how much people aren’t ready for sudden and radical changes. I have felt this isolation period particularly painfully. It was just unbearable for me to study online. It affected the quality of my work and my daily schedule. I wasn’t used to having the home environment be my workplace all at the same time. For me studies and work must not interfere with the cozy house where I need rest. During the quarantine I’ve lost a sense of time. It didn’t affect the quality of my education, but my wellbeing got really bad. I was totally exhausted. Because of the pandemic I’ve had many problems with my mental and physical health.
But the pandemic has also taught us to quickly adjust to new realities. People will never be able to fully protect themselves from dangers and challenges. Thanks to the pandemic we’ve realized that Ukraine is still far from other more developed countries. And it’s only because of this tough situation that we began to rise.
I see a sad situation in the educational institutions of Ukraine. Frankly speaking, the current way of teaching at schools and universities during the quarantine doesn’t do much good to our young people, but we’re also dealing here with the quality of education in Ukraine.
The red zone in many regions now looks like a preventive action. For example, in Lviv we don’t have a tourism season yet. So it’s better to stop the spread of the disease now, in November before tourists come to us. Will there be a lockdown in December? It’s hard to say now. I think there won’t be because of the holiday season, but we should be prepared for the new restrictions in January, as it happened in the beginning of 2021.
