For many international students pursuing their studies at UC Berkeley across vastly different time zones, the pandemic has been a time marked by isolation, exhaustion and mental fatigue.
Although some professors have adopted accommodations, there remains to be change on a campuswide scale, resulting in calls from students and organizations representing the international community for greater flexibility in instruction.
Following the death of Kaijie Zhang, an international freshman who attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, earlier this year, the ASUC has raised further concerns regarding synchronous online instruction. Zhang was taking courses synchronously from his family home in China and died after bouts of irregular sleep, according to a statement made by ASUC Senators Rex Zhang, Samuel Peng and Will Liu, who each represent the international student community.