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.
New Year 2021: Turning Over a New Leaf
Last Updated January 28, 2021
We’ve mastered our daily Zoom rituals, we’ve revamped our approach to resolutions and we’ve made masks a permanent fixture on our faces. Now that we’ve decided to turn over a new leaf, nothing can stop us. We’ve gone from anxiously anticipating a change in presidential administration to witnessing a successful transition of power and rapid policy change. Instead of absolute panic, the class of 2021 has a sense of what to expect graduating amid a pandemic. With the vaccine rollout in motion, perhaps this will be the year UC Berkeley’s freshmen finally get to meet on campus again.