How the lockdown situation has affected students’ careers & how to tackle the issue?

In this blog, as a college going student, I have tried to evaluate and pin-point the difficulties faced by students in the learning and internship/job-finding process during the COVID-19 induced lockdown and the reasons behind the same. To conclude, I have provided some suggestions to cope with same as per my experience as a student, intern and apprentice in this lockdown situation. Hope you get some insight out of the same and some ideas that may be of help to you. Happy learning!

A lockdown on the normals of the education sector

The surging pandemic has completely changed the outlook of the education system. As the coronavirus spreads, many countries have decided to shut down educational institutions as part of the social distancing policy to contain the virus. As a result, students are bearing the brunt of facing an uncertain future in terms of their careers and higher education. A study by the International Labour Organization has warned that the novel coronavirus has affected the youth disproportionately, impacting their work opportunities and career options for decades to come[1].

Also, adapting to the “new normal” is not turning out to be viable option for everyone due to varying reasons and so, many are finding it challenging to focus on education and career planning has gone for a toss. Many are reconsidering their plans to pursue higher education this year, amid the fear of the prolonged effects of the pandemic. So, what does this “new normal” mean for students? What are the problems behind it? And how is it affecting them?

Online classes & virtual attendance: A “new normal”

The “new normal” involves replacing physical classrooms by online classes. While this is convenient in keeping students safe from COVID-19 without having to compromise on their education, it has its cons.

1. In a country like India, where almost 70% of its population resides in rural areas, the parents would not be willing to spend on expensive devices like laptops and smartphones, and even if they did, the internet connection in these areas is either poor or unavailable altogether. Besides, students from rural areas are incentivized to go to school because of the midday meal scheme and learning is not their prime objective in most cases.
2. It has been found that some students, even after having access to a good internet connection and individual smart devices, do not feel motivated enough to attend classes online. This could be because they do not feel connected to their teacher and classmates on an online platform, they do not have incentives like attendance, grades, chance to interact with friends and peers, extracurricular activities, etc. to drive them.
3. Sometimes, the internet connection is so poor that very little information of actual educational value is exchanged even in an hour-long lecture. This leads to frustration in having wasted time and energy with very little gain.
4. A vast majority of parents sharply feel the pricing issue when it comes to online courses. Many feel that they are overpriced, not particularly of good quality and would lead to a negligible value add. Very few parents are of the belief that good quality resources are available online and are a worthy investment. And even if the courses may be of good quality, students may lose interest in going through with it and may discontinue it due to the monotony of sitting and reading from a laptop with zero interaction from an actual teacher.
5. Being constantly glued to a screen may give headaches or eye pain to some students, especially those who wear spectacles as the blue light being emitted from the computer screen is not healthy for the eyes, especially if the device is being used for long durations. The situation is still better for students who have access to laptops as the screen is big but those who rely on mobile phones can experience this problem at a higher degree as the screen of a phone is much smaller, so it is difficult to read long and time consuming excerpts of text from such a tiny screen.

These are just some among the many reasons why adapting to the “new normal” in the education sector is proving to be difficult for quite a lot of people.

Effects on students’ careers & higher education

Learning in lockdown is tasking as the pandemic has taken a toll on the mental health of students. The uncertainty looming ahead has resulted in loss of motivation, suicidal thoughts, fear of not getting the job/college of choice, financial pressures etc. It’s easy to lose hope in a crisis like this, especially now that the world is witnessing a significant amount of deteriorating mental health issues. Many working young people lost their jobs, reduced hours or were not paid for work already done, resulting in a massive increase in the youth unemployment rate. Many have even dropped plans of enrolling in a university this year. Final Year students are apprehensive at the thought of taking exams due to fear of the coronavirus and a possibility of getting poor grades due to not being in the right mindset to study, lack of resources to study from, etc.

A survey report stated that young people are facing a “triple shock” from the crisis[2], which is not only destroying their employment, but has also disrupted and delayed their education and training and has also made it far more difficult to enter the labour market or move between jobs. The learning process as students have known it, is significantly changing in a flick and adjusting to it is not something each and every one is ready to do or willing to do, but regardless, is going to have to do. Embracing this “new normal”, which has slowly started to lean towards becoming the “new reality”, seems to be the only option now, and the young generation must now be guided to prepare for this.

Tips & suggestions to cope with the situation

On the brighter side, many alternatives such as interactive webinars, online certificate courses (inclusive of video lectures to break the monotony of sitting and just reading from a laptop/mobile phone), quizzes, debates, article/blog/essay writing competitions, virtual internships and jobs (content writing/campus ambassadors/marketing/programming/designing/researching…and the list goes on), etc. are springing up so that students and freshers may be provided with an incentive to learn and an opportunity to grow and increase their knowledge base. One advantage of being able to work from the comfort of your home is that you can attend the lectures and webinars in your pyjamas!

What’s more, there’s no problem of commute so the extra time saved can be utilized in doing something else that you like, such as watching a movie, going for a stroll, listening to some songs, maybe starting your work on another task or assignment, etc. Multi-tasking is one of the major advantages as you are not required to meet anyone or go anywhere, all communication is done through WhatsApp, e-mail or online meetings and the place of work is simply your study-desk at home. So, students can attend multiple online sessions in a day, can participate in multiple competitions at a time, can take up several desired online courses on topics of their choice and can even work more than one internship or job simultaneously as time availability and management have never been easier.

I myself have participated in three different competitions, taken up two online courses and am currently working five internships, all at once! It is a golden opportunity to adopt multiple new skills, gain valuable experiences, add new qualifications to your skill-set, increase your network and reach out to people through social networking platforms, interact with experts and professionals through webinars and virtual schools, work with people you would otherwise never have even crossed paths with and thus make new friends and acquaintances, hone your existing talents and learn new ones, explore new fields, increase your knowledge because no amount of  knowledge is ever enough, and so on and so forth.. some steps which I undertook to get going are:

• Drafting a crisp yet informative CV/Resume and applying to each and every internship that caught my eye. Do not hesitate in applying to any internship and such of  your choice, the worst that could happen is you won’t get it and might have to apply to another one, that is no big deal, I had to face that too. But do not self-reject.
• LinkedIn. Boosting your already existing profile on LinkedIn or creating a new one if you do not already have one is very beneficial. The opportunities on LinkedIn are vast in terms of finding internships/jobs of all kinds, online courses/seminars/webinars, competitions, etc. as it contains a lot of pages dedicated to catering of all the above-mentioned, and many more, opportunities. It allows you to post your work which increases your outreach and helps you connect with experts, professionals and others in the same field as yours or even any other field of your liking. Doing this helped me a lot to get my work recognized, increase my network and learn a lot of new things.
• Platforms such as Togetherwcww, The Law Learner’s, Internshala, Internship bank, to name a few, provide an abundance of opportunities of all kinds for students from varying range of fields. These include call for papers in various journals, internships, apprenticeships, memberships, jobs, competitions, volunteer-work, basic and advanced online courses, and so on. I have availed for a lot of opportunities; mainly online courses, internships and competitions; through these platforms and have received a satisfactory response so far.
• Simple google searches may also lead you to quite a lot of opportunities that you desire to undertake, although this is not as advisable as it can be quite random due to difficulty in conducting a raw effective filtered search on google.

Make groups on WhatsApp and share the information you receive to friends, peers and classmates so that they may be encouraged to do the same and a varied range of opportunities can be exchanged and applied to.

These suggestions are all solely based on my experiences in the lockdown and you may choose to take up and follow whatever appeals to you and what you deem to be the most viable, likeable and best fitting option for you. 

It is quite convenient, to be able to do all of this, all the while sitting at your desk in your comfy hoodie with a cup of coffee in your hand and your laptop in front. The luxury of being able to do so and having all such resources at your disposal, which I just mentioned above, unfortunately, is not a boon available to one and all. So be grateful if you do have it and make the best use of it as you possibly can. As it was rightly noted by the Supreme Court (while reviewing the NEET and JEE postponement petitions) and I concur, “Life should move on even in the COVID-19 times. Putting the career of students in a peril is not an option. We should now move on”. [3]

References:

[1] https://www.newindianexpress.com/world/2020/may/27/coronavirus-to-impact-work-opportunities-career-options-of-lockdown-generation-un-2148729.html

[2] Supra note 1

[3] https://www.livelaw.in/top-stories/neet-jee-will-not-be-postponed-union-ministry-161777