Anxious Students

[PhilRunner]

I'm wondering if others have encountered what I am. I'm teaching mostly first year students, and I'm not surprised to find that they are feeling a lot of anxiety. As new students, they are wanting to make connections and new friendships, yet they are inundated with messages to social distance and not to gather. As the flagship university in our system just moved to online instruction this week, they are waiting and worried about a similar move at our school. As a result, some expressed hesitancy in making friendships and investing too heavily in being here. They are just in limbo waiting to leave. One student was joining virtually from the isolation dorm. She's under 2 week quarantine, alone, during her first weeks of school. She receives a meal delivery once a day (with all 3 meals included.) They expressed wanting certainty, something no one can offer them.

To be clear: I did not support the university opening, and I'm not interested in rehashing the debates about that decision here. Instead, I'm curious if others are finding students having similar experiences. I'm not surprised that students are struggling, and it remains a topic I'm not seeing addressed anywhere, but perhaps I'm just not looking in the right places.

Beyond my concerns about their mental health, I also wonder at what point does that anxiety turn to anger with the institution that opened the opportunity for an in-person experience, only to deliver one that is woefully inadequate? If we move online and send them home, I wonder if they may not have developed enough of a bond with others and to the university itself to weather the disruption. Many may not want to return here after such an experience.

[Ruralguy]

I've certainly heard people address the second concern, which also can be a major issue with starting online in the first place. I don't think there is an automatic place to where anxiety leads, buy surely some may exhibit anger and frustration and some may leave for various reasons. I would encourage you to be flexible in dealing with students.

[Hibush]

Most students in this situation will welcome more structure than usual. That structure provides some certainty. Giving them concrete assignments, timelines and expectations helps provide the structure. You may only be able to provide that a week at a time, but work with that as best you can.

A required virtual coffee break to meet some of the other new students is an extracurricular that can help.

[Wahoo Redux]

We are already a commuter school, and students tend to stay in their neighborhoods and region throughout their lives, so we are probably already in a different boat than the OP describes.

Nevertheless, I get rashes of student emails concerning technology and class expectations.  Most students are extremely apologetic and anxious.  Zoom, while a very simple program, is throwing a great many of them for a loop----I don't know why, since it is such a user-friendly program, except that the newness of the scenario is upsetting.

At the same time, we have students deliberately breaking all the rules of good judgment.  I could post on the "students won't party" thread but haven't yet.  We made the news for the bad judgment of our students last week.  If they are anxious about losing the social aspect of college, many are overcompensating.

[kaysixteen]

(She receives a meal delivery once a day (with all 3 meals included.)

So she is supposed to sit in her dorm room, alone, all day, brand new student, and eat cold food for lunch and dinner?

[PhilRunner]

Yes, that't about it, though she does have a microwave and refrigerator.

I appreciate and agree with the comments about students benefitting from structure, though I also think there's a larger responsibility about the institution thinking through how to support student mental health as they experience such circumstances.

[Vkw10]

Our classes start Monday. Would helping classes set up online meetings during the first week be a good idea? Create a discussion topic like Virtual Hallway Talk, show them how to schedule a Zoom meeting, then encourage them to post their meeting invites in the discussion topic? Suggest they set up some meetings to chat about class without the professor, the way they would in the hallway on the way to and from class? It wouldn't take much of my class time and might help them connect with each other.

I hear that our campus is considering Zoom meetings for quarantined students. Several meetings scattered throughout the day and evening, open to anyone in quarantine, just so they can talk with each other.

[Bonnie]

Our classes start Monday. Would helping classes set up online meetings during the first week be a good idea? Create a discussion topic like Virtual Hallway Talk, show them how to schedule a Zoom meeting, then encourage them to post their meeting invites in the discussion topic? Suggest they set up some meetings to chat about class without the professor, the way they would in the hallway on the way to and from class? It wouldn't take much of my class time and might help them connect with each other.

I hear that our campus is considering Zoom meetings for quarantined students. Several meetings scattered throughout the day and evening, open to anyone in quarantine, just so they can talk with each other.

I think this is a great idea. Anything early on to get them connected to each other, particularly if they are new to the university.But also be prepared for them to prefer to meet as a group in the "old fashioned" ways of groupme or whatsapp or just arranging a time to meet on a google doc. They are still building their zoom endurance so might not want to add optional meetings.

[Vkw10]

Our classes start Monday. Would helping classes set up online meetings during the first week be a good idea? Create a discussion topic like Virtual Hallway Talk, show them how to schedule a Zoom meeting, then encourage them to post their meeting invites in the discussion topic? Suggest they set up some meetings to chat about class without the professor, the way they would in the hallway on the way to and from class? It wouldn't take much of my class time and might help them connect with each other.

I hear that our campus is considering Zoom meetings for quarantined students. Several meetings scattered throughout the day and evening, open to anyone in quarantine, just so they can talk with each other.

I think this is a great idea. Anything early on to get them connected to each other, particularly if they are new to the university.But also be prepared for them to prefer to meet as a group in the "old fashioned" ways of groupme or whatsapp or just arranging a time to meet on a google doc. They are still building their zoom endurance so might not want to add optional meetings.

Good point. I'm actually thinking of this as something they might use the first week, to figure out other ways to connect. I'll have to mention that.

[Caracal]

We are already a commuter school, and students tend to stay in their neighborhoods and region throughout their lives, so we are probably already in a different boat than the OP describes.

Nevertheless, I get rashes of student emails concerning technology and class expectations.  Most students are extremely apologetic and anxious.  Zoom, while a very simple program, is throwing a great many of them for a loop----I don't know why, since it is such a user-friendly program, except that the newness of the scenario is upsetting.

At the same time, we have students deliberately breaking all the rules of good judgment.  I could post on the "students won't party" thread but haven't yet.  We made the news for the bad judgment of our students last week.  If they are anxious about losing the social aspect of college, many are overcompensating.

There's a tendency with Covid to try to find moral clarity by condemning people who aren't following the rules. Obviously, those people exist, but there's a risk that we start seeing catching a disease as a moral failing. That's really unfair to the majority of students who probably aren't going to large gatherings. The problem is that there's a lot of space in between holing up in your room and going to parties in the frat house basement. Students are just people, who are trying to navigate this like the rest of us. This is all basically impossible for most of us in various ways, but at least most of us have houses or apartments that we share with people we have made long term decisions to live with.

I don't step out of my bedroom and see various acquaintances, friends and people who I'd like to know better. Those same randos aren't going to show up as invited guests of someone else in my bedroom. I found all that pretty overwhelming when I was an undergrad even when I wasn't worried all these people might get me sick. I often coped with all of this by going elsewhere. Lots of days I spent more time at the coffee shop than I did in my dorm. Now, those options are either nonexistent or filled with anxiety too.

Some of these problems may not exist in the same way for commuter students, but many of them are likely to have their own challenges to manage and the choices aren't as simple as "don't go to parties."

[kiana]

I've been seeing a lot of anxiety with online courses too.

A lot more people than normal emailing me about textbooks and the like.

[downer]

I've been seeing a lot of anxiety with online courses too.

A lot more people than normal emailing me about textbooks and the like.

I've been getting a bunch of emails too. My take was that some students just want to be well prepared. I don't know if they are anxious or not. It's also somewhat rational to double check because so often there is miscommunication between bookstores and professors, there are issues about which editions to get, and things just go wrong. One student said that on some school page, there were two books listed as required for my course, though I had only specified one. I've no idea how that second book got listed -- not by me.

I'm trying to lay out everything as clearly as possible by the start of the semester, and then not to change anything significant.

[polly_mer]

(She receives a meal delivery once a day (with all 3 meals included.)

So she is supposed to sit in her dorm room, alone, all day, brand new student, and eat cold food for lunch and dinner?

Social media is awash with pictures of these meal boxes and the frustration at what was packed with little to no choice.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/22/nyregion/coronavirus-tiktok-college-quarantine-food.html

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/21/us/nyu-quarantine-student-meals-trnd/index.html

Note how many of the 'quarantining' students mention going out to dinner or grocery shopping before staying in, thus ignoring the point of initial quarantine.

https://www.cpr.org/2020/08/22/its-been-a-little-lonely-not-gonna-lie-colorado-college-students-talk-about-quarantine/ has more about the isolation with little about the food.

[spork]

We have students coming to campus to begin a two-week quarantine mandated by the state. They will apparently be in single rooms with food delivered. I expect the self-isolation to start disintegrating within the first 24 hours.

I'm teaching entirely online this fall even though the campus will be open. I have 60 students total in my fall undergraduate courses. I have emailed them each month over the summer, encouraging them to get in touch if they have questions. I've sent them a draft of the course syllabus. My most recent email announced a Zoom meeting that I've scheduled before classes start so that they can test their proficiency with Zoom and start getting to know each other. So far, over the entire summer, I've received one email from one student, someone who added the class recently; she wanted a copy of the syllabus. So if these students have anxiety about the fall semester, they aren't expressing it to me and they aren't taking advantage of opportunities I'm providing to reduce that anxiety.

I think it's worth keeping in mind that the anxiety-ridden full-time residential college student we always see described in the media represents at most about 60 percent of college undergraduates. At least 40 percent, possibly significantly more, are part-time students, not living on campus, financially independent of parents, married/have children, and/or older than 25.

Maybe I'm a cranky old man, but I have a lot more sympathy toward a 32-year old single mom trying to get her dental hygienist's license by going to community college while juggling two part-time jobs than I have toward the 19-year old NYU student in a dorm room who's purchased a $2,000 meal plan. We rarely hear about the anxieties of the former.

[wellfleet]

Our classes start Monday. Would helping classes set up online meetings during the first week be a good idea? Create a discussion topic like Virtual Hallway Talk, show them how to schedule a Zoom meeting, then encourage them to post their meeting invites in the discussion topic? Suggest they set up some meetings to chat about class without the professor, the way they would in the hallway on the way to and from class? It wouldn't take much of my class time and might help them connect with each other.

I hear that our campus is considering Zoom meetings for quarantined students. Several meetings scattered throughout the day and evening, open to anyone in quarantine, just so they can talk with each other.

I've started two teaching terms since classes went online due to covid, and in the week before each one, I've had optional "come chat and test out the tools" Zoom meetings that have been well-attended. You can also use breakouts in those meetings to give students a chance to meet each other, talk about whatever they want, etc., without being in that space yourself.