Columbus’s international student body face unprecedented challenges during COVID BY ZA K KOL ESA R P HOTOS BY J UL I A N FOG L I ET T I
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hutdown. Quarantine. Isolation. However you want to label it, the fact remains that COVID-19 has not only attacked our physical health but has affected our mental health in ways never experienced before. International students, in particular, have had to face several distinct challenges since the pandemic swept the United States. Coming from a different hemisphere and having almost immediately to make a decision about either going back home at the onset of the pandemic or waiting it out, was just the tip of the iceberg for Columbus’s international student body. Take CCAD student Yu Wang, for example, a first-year illustration major, who just completed his second semester at CCAD. He found his first semester to be a pretty regular preliminary international student experience. The second, however, following a series of lockdowns and international travel shutdowns that prevented him from flying home, gave him a reason not to continue his studies in the United States. “Here I feel very lonely [with] no friends [and] no family here,” Yu said of the painful isolation COVID has caused for international and domestic students, alike. 56
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I try to live in different areas of the world to see how society is there. It helps me broaden my horizons.
His girlfriend Bela, a Chinese transfer student at CCAD, went through an equally frustrating process that many international students have also encountered —the back and forth booking and rebooking of flights that are frequently canceled with very little notice. She finally did secure a flight on May 21, when the United States Embassy gave her just three days warning before she would have to return home. This has become a common occurrence among international students studying in the United States, especially at CCAD, where Liz Gordon-Canlas, director of residence life and housing, discussed the difficult reality for international students during COVID. One student, having packed up all of their belongings and turned in their room key, got
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into an Uber only to have their flight canceled before they reached the airport, GordonCanlas recalled. “So, at a certain point, students just decided that they were going to stay either because they couldn't afford the flight, because the flight kept getting canceled, or because they were fearful that if they were able to get home, would they be able to return to the U.S. for their fall classes?” Gordon-Canlas said. The money is no small hurdle either. While international students are accustomed to extremely pricey flights (leaving many to stay in Columbus during the school breaks in the winter and summer), flights during COVID were hovering between $8,000 and $9,000 one way. In non-COVID times, flights were
