Testing times:
The International Student Perspective on the impacts of Covid Alicia Lim My offer to study Biomedical Sciences at the University of Western Australia came as a beacon of hope in 2018, during a year of applications to various medical schools located in Singapore as well as in Australia. With the mental and physical toll of academic results, admission tests and interviews behind me, I was ready to take on this new journey as a fresh, bright-eyed university student. The entire process of applying to medical schools had been so tedious that embarking on my medical school journey itself seemed so much easier in comparison. My first year was pretty amazing, to say the least. I finally got a taste of studying abroad and living independently, in a brand new environment. In the second year, I got the chance to move to a studio room on campus. I had the time of my life, whipping up strange dishes without risking getting scolded by my parents, or bingeing on Christmas movies in February. At that point, I had only been in Perth for about a month, and classes had begun their move online due to the worsening of the COVID outbreak. My parents were encouraging me to return back to Singapore, saying that I had nothing to lose since classes were already online. If I had gotten sick in Perth, I would be all alone with no family around me. I hurriedly asked some of my fellow Singaporeans living in hall
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with me, whether they would be returning back home. A staggering majority replied no. I was thoroughly conflicted and knew that if I stayed, my parents would be pretty worried. However, if I went home, I risked being unable to return back to Perth while the other students would move on without me. Eventually, I made the tough decision of deciding to return to Singapore. The process of adjusting from studying on campus in Perth to studying in my messy little room was quite a complicated one. Studying away from friends wasn’t really a problem as I had always been an independent learner, and never really relied on study groups or study buddies. The issue was the fact that I did not possess a conducive environment for doing any sort of work. My desk had been taken over with a large TV and the dining table wasn’t the best option either. I decided that I had to take action if I wanted to be able to work efficiently back home. My first arduous task was to clean up the unidentifiable pile of items on the floor of my room. The pile had grown pretty tall and intimidating over the years. A lot of decluttering and chucking away to other areas was involved. When the pile finally disappeared, I bought a tiny desk that could fit just in between the little area between my cupboard and my bed. Although tiny, it served its purpose just as well as any other desk would.
Hypothetically, if we were to abolish commerce degrees.
