International students open up about the pressures of lockdown life
THE coronavirus pandemic has not been easy for anybody.
From lockdowns that seemed to never end to the numerous pressures on everyday life, it’s been a tough time.
And for international students, life under lockdown has brought its own challenges.
From paying out hundreds of pounds for tests to visit home, being told to quarantine for weeks on end in shared housing and confusion over how to even buy food during lockdown – these have been some of the difficulties faced by students.
Now, three Cardiff University undergraduates have shared how they are coping with travel restrictions, life in quarantine and remote learning.
“When I started in my role in July last year, I got so many emails asking what are we going to do, what is happening,” said Cardiff’s Student Union Officer for International Students, Megha Ray.
Since then, over Christmas and again at Easter Megha’s inbox has been full of students asking for guidance on everything from how to self-isolate, where to get
Covid tests and how to buy food during a lockdown.
To support their international students Welsh universities, including Cardiff, have introduced a variety of financial and pastoral policies.
Yet, “the students are struggling,” said Megha.
Cardiff University has the largest number of international students at any university in Wales, making up 25% of the entire student population.
Three of these students, each with their individual struggles, have shared how they are coping with the hurdles the global pandemic really
has put in their way.
■ Ilia Kalliontzi is a second-year psychology student at Cardiff and travelled to see her family in Greece for Easter.
While still against the rules to travel for holidays, it is a reasonable excuse for an international
student to go home during a term break to see their family.
Travelling in non-Covid times was already stressful for Ilia, who explains half-jokingly that she’s the kind of person who is at the airport two or three hours early and always worries about documentation and passports.
Still, she was caught off guard. For her flight to Greece she knew she needed a passenger locator form, but didn’t realise it was essential to complete this at least 24 hours in advance. This small oversight almost cost her the flight.
“There’s so many documents to remember and so many things to do before you get to the airport. It’s so easy to just forget something or do something wrong – it’s really stressful,” Ilia said.
On her return to the UK, she had to show five different documents.
“They asked for my passenger locator form, the booking information for the [travel testing kit], the negative test result to travel back, the passenger locator form from Greece, they even asked me about the EU settlement scheme,” she explained.
With travelling also comes the need for a total of 20 days of quarantine, and the financial strain of paying for Covid tests in two different countries with a final bill of about £323. In the UK she paid £120 for a single PCR and about £160 for the two PCR tests included in the travel testing kit.
In Greece, she paid around EUR50 (or £43) for a PCR test, revealing a clear price discrepancy for testing between the two countries.
From the six universities in Wales with more than 1,000 international students, Cardiff University is the only one that has published policies that say they are reimbursing the travel testing kit cost.
■ Easter Chan, 20, is a second-year pharmacy undergraduate at Cardiff University. As her course is defined as essential, she had little choice but to return to Cardiff after spending Christmas with her family in Hong Kong, a situation she felt very unhappy about.
“In a sense that was kind of harsh because there was obviously the new variant around at that time, and my family was quite worried about me honestly,” Easter said.
“It’s funny because the amount of physical hours I have to come back for, they are I think half of the time less than the hours I have to travel back. Because my flight is 12 hours and I only came back for four inperson sessions.”
She adds that she is also supposed to complete a one-week placement, but that might re-scheduled.
“I would say seeing my family is really a luxury,” said Easter, adding that she’s grateful her family paid for her to stay in one of the designated quarantine hotels she is required to stay in.
Easter spent 10 days in this accommodation, which at least was close to her family’s house, where her movements are monitored via her phone’s GPS and someone called regularly to check that she was at home.
“This might sound really bizarre, especially to Western countries, but Hong Kong went through Sars and we sort of had experience with it and we
knew what to do,” she said.
Easter added: “Quarantining itself was horrible. Being in like solitary confinement I think, in a sense, it indirectly impacted my mental health and that had major effects on my sleep cycle.”
While she understands her course requires her to come back to the UK, she feels more consideration should be given for international students, who have to face the increased risk of catching Covid when travelling.
■ Karina Liao, 20, is in her second year of an English language and linguistics undergraduate course at Cardiff University.
She is currently studying completely remotely, which comes with its own challenges.
She said: “I’m kind of sick of doing it online. We have prerecorded lectures, they’re all right but it’s like listening to a podcast and technically I could find loads of those online.
“I mean, it’s OK, you’re still kind of learning.”
A friend of Karina’s from the first year of the course decided to take a year off because they felt online learning was not working.
“She said I should do it too and yes I should have, but it’s just not as easy for international students because then my visa gets cut and I have to re-apply and pay again,” explains Karina.
“I don’t want to go through that process during a pandemic because it’ll be even slower and then, what if something goes wrong and I can’t come back? I’ll regret it.”
As an American citizen, Karina pays almost double the amount of tuition
fees compared to home students.
“It’s just not fair I think for international students to pay that much when they’re basically not there and not able to access the facilities,” she said.
She adds that, for example, getting textbooks she needs for modules had proved difficult as some are not available as an e-book, leaving it to every student to find a copy for themselves.
Due to the costs involved and long period of quarantine, she has decided against travelling to see her parents, who currently live in Hong Kong.
In a letter to students in March, ProVice-Chancellor for education and students Claire Morgan said: “I am mindful of the impact that the changes we are all making and adapting to is having on our wellbeing, and the importance of taking care of ourselves. If you are experiencing difficulties do make use of the support we provide – available to you wherever you are living and studying. “We’re now able to confirm the additional funding within our support package, including the support made available to us via the Higher Education Funding Council for Wales (HEFCW) allocation from the Welsh Government. We can now confirm that, in common with other universities in Wales, all our students struggling to meet essential expenses as a direct result of the pandemic can access £350 from the new Covid-19 Student Support Fund.
“As well as the Covid-19 Student Support Fund above, we will be providing additional support to groups of students the Welsh Government has highlighted as being more adversely impacted by the pandemic.”
Hong Kong went through Sars and we sort of had experience with it and we knew what to do
Easter Chan
I’m kind of sick of doing it online. We have prerecorded lectures, they’re all right but it’s like listening to a podcast
Karina Liao