Student Union
If It’s 3:30 a.m., It Must Be Time for Online Class
It’s 3:30 a.m. It’s almost time for class.
I take a moment to stare into my pitch-black room. I always set my alarm 30 minutes before class starts so I don’t oversleep. Sometimes I hit the snooze button to get an extra 10 minutes of rest.
After a few minutes, I get up and slowly open my door. I tiptoe to the kitchen to get a glass of water, careful not to wake my sleeping family members.
As I click the link into the Zoom classroom, my professor greets everyone with a “Good afternoon.” It’s 2 p.m. in Virginia, but 4 a.m. in South Korea. Some of my classmates sip on their afternoon coffee on their patio before class begins.
I wish I had coffee.
When the first couple of cases were reported in the United States in January, South Korea was the second most infected country in the world with around 10,000 cases. I was more worried about my family back home.
They would update me regularly about the strict coronavirus guidelines and how the government passed a mask mandate where people could only purchase two N-95 face masks per week.
When they asked how I was doing, I reassured them that I was fine and that there were only a few cases. This was in February.
But as cases began to climb at a frightening speed in early March, my parents and I decided it would be best to be with family during this bizarre time.
I was one of the thousands of international students who returned to their home countries that month due to the coronavirus pandemic.
I knew that this meant I’d have to take courses during the middle of the night and become a master of time zones. Online courses are definitely not the most ideal way to absorb information, but because I was so close to graduating, I decided to finish my degree online in South Korea.
This semester, my synchronous classes started at 3 a.m., 11 p.m., and 10 p.m. Then Daylight Saving Time pushed time an hour back. Needless to say, I don’t really have a set sleep schedule at this point.
But like most people around the world, this year was all about adjusting and becoming flexible with one’s schedule and surroundings, so I told myself this was an adjustment I’d have to make.
“Zoom University,” a term frequently used to describe online classes, has left college students around the world dissatisfied and anxious.
“Six hours in school is better than three hours in online classes,” tweeted Muhd Akif Bin Azmi, a student attending Form Six college in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. His tweet struck a chord with thousands of people, garnering more than 99,000 likes and nearly 31,000 retweets.
In a report surveying 290 university students in South Korea, 56% said they were planning to take a leave of absence for the 2020 fall semester with low satisfaction for online courses being the top reason. The main complaint? “I would rather take a leave of absence than take a class that only reads Powerpoint.”
New enrollment of international students dropped 43% because of COVID-19 in the academic school year that began four months ago, according to the Institute of International Education. Nearly 40,000 students — mostly incoming freshmen — have deferred enrollment at 90% of U.S. institutions.
Many students struggled at the beginning of the year with the abrupt shift to virtual learning, prompting universities to switch to pass/fail grading options or cut back on tuition. Some universities extended pass/fail grading options for the fall semester as the coronavirus continued to spread at alarming rates.
Despite setbacks, I’m grateful for the position I am in and understand it is a privilege to be able to continue my education online.
Millions of other students have been derailed from their studies because the coronavirus pandemic has created a global education emergency. As of December 1, more than 224 million students have been affected by school closures, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
For children, the number is even higher. More than 1 billion children are out of school because of closures across 188 countries, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Students are not the only ones struggling with online classes. Parents, teachers and university professors have expressed their frustrations and concerns with online learning.
In the end, 2020 has proven to be one of the strangest and most devastating times for millions around the world. We’ve all had to sacrifice, adjust, adapt and heal in our own ways.
On the bright side, I’ve learned to work under tough conditions and deliver and become a flexible, strategic thinker.
And as my college journey comes to an end, I do think that this has been a character-building experience and I know I’m going to exit this situation better than when I came into it.
I have my graduation ceremony to look forward to! It will be virtual.
At 4 AM KST.
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Pro-Palestinian protests in US could impact 2024 election
Despite the fact that many of their encampments at university campuses have been dismantled, pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the United States are standing their ground. If the protests continue, some analysts say they could have an impact on the 2024 presidential election. VOA’s Veronica Balderas Iglesias explains.
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Pro-Palestinian protest ends quietly at University of Southern California
Pro-Palestinian protesters at an encampment at the University of Southern California, one of the focal points of anti-Israel protests across U.S. college campuses, left the scene early Sunday after authorities warned them that they could be arrested.
Their departure came after university safety officers and Los Angeles police began clearing the center of campus, where police had arrested 93 people on April 24.
"If you are in the center of campus, please leave,” the university warned the protesters on the social media platform X, saying they could be arrested if they stayed.
Elsewhere, pro-Palestinian protests continued at several college graduation ceremonies on Saturday.
At the University of Virginia, 25 people were arrested for trespassing after police clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters who refused to remove tents from the campus.
At the University of Michigan, demonstrators chanted anti-war messages and waved flags during graduation ceremonies. More protests occurred at Indiana University, Ohio State University, Princeton University in New Jersey and Northeastern University in Massachusetts.
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Amid internship pressure, international students should focus on self-care
That’s the argument of Edhita Singhal, an international student from India studying at the University of Southern California.
Despite the fear of not finding a good internship, it’s important to relax and take care of yourself, she writes in her biweekly column for campus newspaper The Daily Trojan. (April 2024)
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Columbia students on edge as police presence remains on campus after raid to clear protesters
Police remain on Columbia University’s campus, even after clearing out student protesters and their encampment. But questions remain about how the university and the students move forward. Tina Trinh reports from New York.
Columbia University student journalists had an up-close view for days of drama
Student journalists on the Columbia University campus knew what was coming long before police with riot shields arrived to begin arresting the pro-Palestinian protesters.
They had watched the situation spiral as the protesters stood their ground, refusing to abandon Hamilton Hall and using a pulley system to bring supplies into the building they had occupied.
The reporters, working for university and online U.S. and international publications, suspected negotiations with administrators were going nowhere when the protesters began donning COVID-era masks to hide their identities. Some began sleeping on the floor in journalism classrooms or offices out of fear of missing something.
But when a journalism professor began writing the phone number to call if they were arrested in permanent marker on their arms, that was the moment it became clear: They were capturing history.
The police operation Tuesday night that cleared out Hamilton Hall capped two weeks of drama over the protests at Columbia, which student journalists at the Ivy League school lived through as they were covering it.
Other media were being kept off campus, so these reporters were the only ones who could capture what was happening.
"I just woke up and I was like, I'm going to go and take some pictures," said Seyma Bayram, a Columbia journalism fellow focused on creating a longform investigative podcast unrelated to the protests.
The encampments were a visual feast. There were musical performances, students reading and helping each other write papers for their classes. She wanted to document it all.
By Monday, students were facing suspension if they didn't leave. Crowds marched around the encampment chanting. Students were given written notices from the administration, warning them to go. They ripped them up, dumped them in trash bins. Rumors were flying.
That night, Bayram was unwilling to go home, sleeping on her office floor.
"How," she wondered, "are they going to remove the students. They're not leaving."
By Tuesday, she was exhausted. The student reporters charged their cameras and other gear and waited.
Many protesters were starting to leave, recalled Shayeza Walid, a graduate journalism student at Columbia, who covered the arrests for the news website Al-Monitor.
The sun was setting as they held hands and chanted, knowing they faced academic repercussions by remaining. Many had given up covering their faces by now, Walid said.
To her, the chants sounded like a hymn and she saw the protesters, some clad in Palestinian keffiyehs, crying. She doubts she will ever forget it.
"It felt so both inspirational and devastating because these were the kids who were willing to get arrested," she recalled.
And then police started assembling outside, setting up barricades. Even on campus, Bayram could tell by the photos posted on social media that police action was imminent. And then the police were there.
"I don't know, it was just like all of a sudden there were just like police, ... riot gear everywhere," Bayram said.
The student journalists were walking backward, filming as they went, Bayram said.
She was pushed off campus. Police buses and officers were everywhere. Around her, people were being arrested.
"Those of us who are pushed out, like student reporters and faculty, I think we were just all horrified that no press was present outside of, or inside of, Hamilton Hall," Bayram said.
Walid recalled that the reporters paired up for safety. Her partner, an international student, had never seen so many police in one place. "And frankly, I hadn't either," Walid said.
She said the police also seemed shocked when they came into campus and saw how few students were left. "It was very evidently disproportionate from where we were standing," she said.
Before the arrests, protesters inside the campus used a megaphone to lead those protesting outside in chants, recalled Cecilia Blotto, a graduate journalism student, who has been publishing photos and video to Uptown Radio, a project of the university's journalism program.
"Columbia, you are a liar," she recalled them chanting, along with "Disclose, divest! We will not stop, we will not rest."
Then Blotto saw police buses pull up, officers exiting with shields and zip ties. Then they played a recording saying that if the protesters didn't disperse they would be arrested.
"People were like being dragged out on the street, with like four cops holding a leg and an arm each. I saw some really, like, striking images of people, like, yelling shame at the cops, while they were dragging out students," Blotto said. She tried to film it all.
Emily Byrski, a graduate student who had a phone number written on her arm in case she was arrested, said the students weren't totally unprepared. There had been a training session.
Still, she said, there had been so many false alerts.
"It's like the boy who cried wolf. Like, there were two or three nights here where we were told, there was a rumor going around that the NYPD was coming, please come to campus," she recalled.
Byrski had knee surgery earlier in the year, so was unable to run as police descended. She limped along with her buddy.
"So we're sort of seeing this all happen from inside and trying to document it as the NYPD is grabbing people, like shoving them to the ground. It was pretty horrifying to see, like, right a foot away from me," Byrski said.
She said she has seen professors cry over the last week. She is pondering it all, uncertain what to make of it.
"I'm just sort of in shock," Byrski said. "I think we all kind of were in shock."
