What happened to International Students During the Pandemic

COVID19 hit 18 months ago and forced all of Champlain’s traditional undergraduate students to head home to wait out the early stages of the pandemic. But what happened to the International Students?

While the effects of the pandemic were felt by all students, those who were furthest away from home were often put in the most challenging predicaments.

For the fall 2021 Term, Champlain college only has 24 international students. According to Jessa Karki, head of the Office of International Student Services, the pandemic made life incredibly difficult for incoming students for fall 2020, and the recent graduates of spring 2020.

Fall 2020 would have been a large international group for Champlain with 18 international students making their way to the States; “We lost 6 exchange students due to COVID. Who would have come from New Zealand, Scotland, Amsterdam, and Norway? We lost 6 full-time students as well. But we saved the year for 6 more students, through online programming,” said Karki.

Karki had more than her fair share of problems to fix during the pandemic. Her charges were all over the world, up to 12hr ahead, so she helped make sure they were scheduled for classes they could actually attend. Many incoming students had to stay abroad, which meant computers, the internet, and digital learning resources had to be available. Some were still in Burlington and faced financial and food insecurity, or even simply stress over being away from families without the option of visiting and coming back.

“We were told on March 13th that we were going online.,” Karki stated. “The college had sent emails telling students to leave campus due to COVID, or stay away if they were visiting home during break.” Karki realized that circumstances would be different for those students who studied in the U.S. from abroad, so she contacted the international students. “Nobody is going anywhere anytime for the foreseeable future, so everyone is staying right here,” she told them.

Mrs. Karki approached Student Life to keep some students in dorms, many of whom stayed from March 2020 to Fall 2021.

The final and potentially greatest source of anxiety for OISS and the people under its care was the current administration. Weekly at 5 pm eastern standard time, the Trump administration would publish guidance memos around international restrictions on travel or student Visas. “I swear they published them at 5 pm on Friday so they could only get sued by Monday,” said Karki with a wry grin.

International students often come into the US of A with an F1 or J1 Visa, which rely on the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security respectively. Flex hybrid and online learning threatened the status of those Visas, especially with so much confusion at the top of the Federal government. Those issues are now resolved and the international students have come to Champlain in force for fall 2021. Many are now Sophomores who battled through a year of online courses that ended at 3 am to get here, but they’ve finally made it to campus.

Written by Oliver Meigs

Back to Homepage