Are we ready to consider moving abroad for education?
The start of this year makes us feel like we are all characters stuck in a really haunting science-fiction movie. The only difference being that the villain is not some extra-terrestrial being of some unknown planet, it’s a virus named Coronavirus.
From the time coronavirus was an alien term to many countries in the world to today when it’s a reality for most people on this planet, colleges and universities across the world have stepped up and made education safer for students- both domestic and international.
According to the QS report titled “The Impact of the Coronavirus on Global Higher Education”, the following measures are taken up by various universities.
- Switching some of the scheduled courses online
- Delaying the start dates for some of the courses until the following semester
- Changing application deadlines for the next intake
- Changing offer acceptance deadlines for the next intake
- Deferring some of the 2020 offers to 2021
Coronavirus has made universities and students across the world find novel and innovative ways to experience learning. Colleges are learning to adopt online tools that make things easier and less time-consuming for them. Universities are also learning that this situation needs frequent communication with international students and so are using various mediums like emails, social media, phone calls, etc.
As for students, they are adopting the flexible type of learning which can be quite useful once they decide to get their graduate or postgraduate degrees.
One more advantage of online education when it comes to students is that it lets them move at their own pace and if coupled with continual assessments, they can jump ahead as soon as they’ve mastered a skill.
Little by little, students are learning to appreciate the silver lining when it comes to online education. In the same QS survey, a student says, “The university staff is doing the best they can. Powerpoints, course summaries, pre-recorded lectures are all very effective ways to help. I send my assignments to my lecturers via email and they send them back to me graded. It’s a very efficient system.”
All of this proves that the world for education after coronavirus is a much much better and efficient one. It shows that while we are going through dark times, we are also seeing the little rays of light seeping through this darkness in the form of the steps taken by colleges, universities, students and the government to keep international education safe and glamorous as it used to be.
And as students, how can we not be ready to start this exciting journey of international education?