Students say they have had it rough since Covid-19 forced online learning to return.  

They say mental health has gone down the drain this year for a variety of reasons:  loss of a family member, little to no connection with friends or partners, being in a negative area, financial -stresses, and so much more. The class of 2021 had their Homecoming cancelled, the West-Central football game cancelled, and have celebrated almost nothing.

Senior Guillen Covarrubias explained their stresses when it comes to going entirely remote for the rest of the year, “…Going remote was the worst thing that happened. Being remote made everything harder. It’s not even about the learning. It’s about reaching due dates and completing the work. No one truly is learning. I know we can’t control the virus so in one way, it’s a little relieving to be online and not have to have that extra risk factor for interaction.”

Covarrubias, alongside many others, feels the pressure of meeting deadlines with excessive amounts of work being thrown at them through the computer screens.

Covarrubias also goes into detail about their learning environment, and how being at home has been rough as well, “My environment has impacted me more because everything is lonely. Social interaction is one of the aspects of our health. Yeah, family is fun, but I know that everyone probably relates when I say family is one thing and friends are a lot more.”

Students and their bonds with their families always vary, some can have confident, stable relationships, others aren’t as lucky. “A lot of students can’t be who they are while being home, and I know that can be mentally draining. Students like having that freedom of having someone other than family to rely on. Plus, the environment also makes it drastically worse because some people have extremely high risk family members so they can barely have any social interaction,” Covarrubias said.

Senior Noah McPherson discussed how homework has felt for him. “For me, my homework is hard both in person and online, but especially this year being online.”  

McPherson wanted to shine a light on the situation at hand, and give some advice on how to tackle the immense amounts of homework students have been receiving. “What I like to do is start off by listing off what I need to get done that day, and then breaking it up by deciding what’s most important to get done (first) based on the time I have, and then what time is left and go to the lower priority assignments.”

McPherson and Covarrubias both agree that the work load has been hard to manage and handle, but completion is completion.