How King’s Students Have Coped with Isolation During the Pandemic

Graphic by Sarah Sudfeld

Students signed up for a four-year, in-person experience but found themselves back at home and taking virtual classes this past semester due to the COVID-19 pandemic.   

David Boschen, a family therapist and president of the California Association of Adoption Agencies, said students face challenges trying to navigate the lack of social interaction, online learning and increased anxiety during COVID-19. 

“The pandemic’s effect cuts across both ways, whether [one is an] introvert or extrovert,” Boschen said. “All of us need social interaction.”  

College students can traditionally be a vulnerable group emotionally. A 2018 study by Harvard Medical School of 67,000 college students at over 100 schools found that one in four had reported being diagnosed with or treated for a mental health disorder in the prior year. Some 20 percent of students polled had thoughts of suicide. 

 A recent study by BestColleges reported that out of 745 students, 81 percent reported they were experiencing increased stress due to the pandemic.  

For King’s students who stayed in New York, in-person social interaction has been rare in a city hard-hit by the virus.  

“The most I saw people in weeks was the Saturday I moved,” said Emma Powell, a sophomore. 

Students that moved back home had more face to face interaction with family, which was an uncommon occurrence for students who had priorly moved out of the house.   

“My dad and I go get coffee or doughnuts every Saturday,” said Peyton Price, 20, a sophomore who moved back to L.A.. “I’m definitely having to be more intentional about interacting with people because at school you’re around people whether you want to be or not, so that gave me a little bit of room to not reach out to people because I didn’t feel the need to do that as much.”  

Junior at King’s, Ausin Dignan added, “I’m keeping in touch with as many people as I can when it feels natural. I tweet more now then I did during the semester.”

 Boschen said introverts are “able to gain back the relationships that were available to them in the quality and quantity that they need, when they go back to ‘normal’ they will be able to resume life the way they lived it.” 

At first, some introverts enjoyed not being around people constantly, enjoying the rules that came with social distancing.  

“I really liked the first week or so,” said junior, Mason True, “but then being alone constantly started to bother me some. I started to call people on the phone a lot more.” 

However, even some of the introverts met their limit of alone-time in quarantine. 

“I was definitely starting to get lonely after almost ten days of being alone,” Powell said.  

Some, like Dignan, mentioned a positive result of the quarantine: less social anxiety.

“From a relational perspective it has alleviated a little bit of anxiety,” Dignan said. “Releasing the pressure of performing in front of your peers when you are a person that is sometimes drained by interactions can alleviate your overall day to day stress.”

In contrast, many students expressed an increase in anxiety due to the pandemic, mostly centering around a fear of the future. For example, students shared questions like: “Where will I live next semester?”, “Where will I work this summer?” and “What will next year look like?”. 

“I usually just distract myself; there’s nothing I can really do to calm myself down, because everything is just so uncertain,” Powell said. 

King’s freshman, Ellie Davis said she takes a shower when she feels stressed.  

“I usually would have gone to someone else and processed, but now, especially because people are already dealing with their issues I do kind of process it on my own,” Davis said. “I think it’s a healthy thing because when I come out of corona [COVID-19] maybe I’ll be able to process that on my own better.”

Boschen claims anxiety isn’t always “a negative thing.” 

 “Anxiety is a protective thing. If it’s overwhelming all of our decisions, then it’s a negative thing,” Boschen said. “We’ve lived under a level of stress, that we just called normal, because it doesn’t necessarily hurt. What everybody is finding out -- now that they are sheltering in place -- is how much stress that they were under.” 

Boschen recommended that students who feel stressed out get plenty of sleep and create routines. He also said they should reduce their phone use, take on a hobby and exercise more.  

“I’ve realized it’s okay to grieve,” Davis said. “There is an end in sight.”

As the summer begins and states begin to resume pre-quarantine life, students look forward hoping for an in-person fall semester. 

In the meantime Dignan calls his fellow Kingsians to “Recharge, refocus and reach out to people.”