My Grad School Experience During COVID-19

My online schooling journey began in my final year of studies at McMaster University. At first, it was fun. No more hour-long bus rides, no more hauling around a heavy bag. My friends and I even began hosting virtual game nights, as did many of those around us. I assumed adapting to online learning would not be too difficult; after all, I was part of a tech-savvy generation. And in all honesty, it wasn’t. What was hard though was trying to push through the feelings of burnout that immediately began only a few months into the pandemic. I felt as if I were living in limbo – constantly hoping to return to in-person learning, refusing to buy a more comfortable chair or office desk, because “how much longer could a pandemic even last?”. After receiving an invitation to study Speech-Language Pathology at the University of Toronto the following September, no part of me wanted to believe I’d be starting graduate school from the comfort of my own bedroom. 

Unfortunately, the class of 2022 ended up spending not just their first semester, but their first year online. Although we tried our best to connect with each other over the World Wide Web, many of us still felt extremely isolated. The days became a blur, the information became more and more difficult to absorb. I began to fall behind in courses, exhausted from staring at a screen all day. My mental health began to suffer. Still, I tried to push through it. I was ashamed I could not keep up with online schooling when everyone else around me seemed to be doing “just fine”.

It wasn’t until a few heart-to-hearts with my peers that I realized that they were in fact not doing “just fine”. We were annoyed with the never-ending restrictions, envious of the upper years who had a chance to have a normal first year, and we were simply burnt out. When we realized this was a trend amongst the entire class, my proactive peers began connecting with professors and department heads to let them know how we were feeling, and to ask what could be done to help us. Our concerns were brought up in Town Hall meetings. We had more mental wellness events. I was overjoyed at the changes happening around me, but mostly I was happy that I wasn’t alone and that my feelings were valid.

The COVID-19 pandemic definitely hit me with probably the largest learning curve of my educational career. Fortunately, I can say that I have learned more about combatting burnout over the last two years than ever before. Nothing bad will ever come from putting your mental health first, and once you have the right support group alongside you, the possibilities for growth are limitless.