Being a High School Student During a Pandemic

Previously published on Medium

On March 6, 2020, I heard the bell routinely ring at 3:00, ending the last full school day that I’d physically spend at my school.

I was in 11th grade, and I had been taking a full load of AP and AICE college-level classes. The rest of the students and I excitedly ran out of our classes, hoping that we’d get an extra week off after spring break because of the incoming pandemic.

None of us knew what was coming.

For me specifically, the stakes were a little higher. I had two large group projects and presentations due on Monday after spring break. Both of my teachers said, “If we get an extra week off because of this whole corona thing, we’ll cancel the presentations, and hey, maybe even the projects!”

I was praying that we’d get that extra week off, and sure enough, on March 13th, newscasters announced that because of the spread of COVID-19, South Florida schools would be closed for an extra week.

“YEEEEEEEES!!!” I ran around the house in excitement. I busted into the office where my little brother was playing Minecraft and told him the good news. We partied together as my parents watched in amusement.

We texted our cousins and friends, spreading the word: NO SCHOOL!

That excitement wore off quickly. After a while, we started getting emails about this new app called “Zoom,” some type of video-calling platform we’d have to download on our computers and phones to resume classes. Coronavirus wasn’t slowing down, and we weren’t going back to school physically anytime soon.

Being a student during this past year has been strenuous. On top of the pandemic, we have witnessed historic events, elections, and movements. For many of us, the 2020 election was the first one we were able to fully understand. In the 2016 election, I was only 13, and I know other students who were even younger. The 2020 election was, in some ways, our first real election, with many of us voting for the first time and even volunteering on campaign trails.

Last year was also the year where many students’ eyes were opened to the systemic racism in this country. I can personally say that scrolling through social media and seeing video after video of events of police brutality and hearing stories of young black children being killed for the color of their skin took a harsh mental toll on me, my family, my friends, and the black community as a whole. I felt the weight of all of these lost lives on my shoulders. For me, logging on to my classes and pretending everything was okay was exhausting.

Over the past year, students learned a lot more about American history while worrying about the potential economic and social reverberations of… well, 2020. Processing everything that’s been going on in the world while still trying to remember countless facts covered in lectures, PowerPoints and textbooks has been… different.

Students have been struggling with motivation. I’ve seen multiple Tweets and social media posts where high school and college students state that the student in them died in March 2020. Evidenced by the high level of engagement, other students related to this sentiment.

Students don’t see any benefit in waking up at 7:00 AM to sit in front of a computer and listen to a teacher talk for an hour when they could find all the answers to tests and quizzes online (not that any of us do that). The boredom they felt in physical classes has been exponentially amplified on Zoom. Students can easily mute their teachers or keep their cameras off and “attend” their classes in bed.

This mentality isn’t a product of just laziness and procrastination. The psychological impact of the pandemic has harmed academic studies and, more importantly, students’ mental health nationwide. And not much is being done to solve this problem.

According to the Journal of Medical Internet Research, the heightened stress and anxiety found in students is caused by “fear and worry about their own health and of their loved ones,” “difficulty in concentrating,” “disruptions to sleeping patterns,” “decreased social interactions due to physical distancing,” and “increased concerns on academic performance”. With both of my parents working in hospitals, increased isolation, my mind periodically wandering during classes. I’ve experienced just about all of these challenges.

Being a student during a pandemic means staring at a screen for both classes and homework for an unbelievable amount of time, to the point where you have a headache.

It’s motivating yourself to do your assignments.

It’s awkwardly unmuting yourself to answer a question when the teacher calls on you and painstakingly checking afterward to make sure you’re actually muted after seeing one-too-many instances when other students weren’t.

It’s potentially finding and connecting with some cool teachers, even if you’ve never met each other in real life before. It’s joking with other kids in the chat and debating about anime (until the teacher ends the conversation).

It’s sitting in breakout rooms staring at other students you’ve never met before until one of you has the courage to say “hey, what are we supposed to be doing?”

It’s scrambling to sign on when you’ve realized you overslept or took a lunch break that was 10 minutes too long.

It’s a lot.

One thing that I’ve found that helps me cope is taking the time to prioritize yourself. Your mental health will increase if you take the time to do things that you love and take care of yourself. It’s not always easy to put everything on the back burner, but you’ll never be able to get everything done at your highest capability when your mind and body are fatigued and stressed.

Take care of your physical health by exercising regularly, eating well, and getting good amounts of sleep every night. Recharge by relaxing, reading a good book, or ideally something that gets you away from the screens that we’re around for most of the day. When you feel your anxiety building up, release that tension through journaling, singing, making art, cooking, whatever makes you happy.

To all other students persevering through these times, know that you’re not in this alone. As said in the beautiful classical movie, High School Musical, “We’re all in this together”. ❤️