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A new university semester, the same ol’ COVID-19
Thursday 21 October 2021, 03:30pm - 05:00pm
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The new academic session for 2021/2022 started on 11 October 2021 for universities in Malaysia. For most of the 3,231 first year students in Universiti Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS), their university life begins with Webex, Zoom, or MS Teams classes.

For Ertha Leona Jusip, a first-year Bachelor of English for Global Communication undergraduate with the Faculty of Language and Communication, online classes are not new as she has already experienced these for her STPM. Nonetheless, the overall feeling is different. On the first day, she felt that there were too many things going on, leading her to scramble to fulfil expectations. That said, the Kota Marudu lass is confident that she can follow the lectures well, even though she would have preferred to attend a face-to-face lecture.

“Since it is online, I tend to hesitate to ask questions. Sometimes, I lose focus for a moment, but I get back to it [the lecture] again. I try my best to understand more by doing research or asking my friend and lecturer. And I also experienced poor connection and panicked a bit,” Ertha recalled.

First year medical students from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences also chimed in with their thoughts.

Andria Buri, from Miri, Sarawak, seeks for positive thoughts and encouragement from his family and friends. “To me personally, it’s quite scary to do this fully online,” he admitted. Even though the first year or medicine studies focuses on theories, full online learning can still feel daunting to the aspiring doctors.

One good thing is that all lectures are automatically recorded, and students can choose to watch and rewatch at their own time and pace. Nayli Aqilah, from Shah Alam feels that this helps dampen her nervousness. To be more organised, she plans to create and follow weekly timetables.

Another first year medical student from Shah Alam, Ranjeeta Kaur, admitted to feeling nervous. “I am excited to finally be a part of medical school but knowing that I’ll be learning online for some time triggers a fear in me, especially when I think of how hard it can get to learn medicine online.” Ranjeeta also plans to schedule her learning and mentally prepare herself by reading notes before classes.

Whilst first-year students step virtually into their university life, the second years sound a bit more resigned. They are a unique batch of university students, having had no physical classes since the day they started in UNIMAS, one year ago.

Chelsea Sipail, a second year Design Technology undergraduate from the Faculty of Applied and Creative Arts, told us that she felt quite sad that she still needed to learn online, but at the same time, she felt relieved as she felt safer at home. Chelsea copes with online teaching and learning by staying positive.

“Sometimes I can handle it, sometimes I don’t. But I will never give up, because I know it is not only me who are struggling with online learning,” the Sabah-born student explained.

Chelsea is thankful that her family is understanding and is always supportive whenever she feels tired with online learning.

Alevitta Wee, a second-year undergraduate in Resource Biotechnology, Faculty of Resource Science and Technology, echoes the same relief of continuing her study online, due to the persistently high number of COVID-19 cases. Nonetheless, she expresses her hope to be able to be on campus one day.

“It is sad that we never got to experience life as first year students [on campus] and missing out on laboratory skills. It would be different compared to online classes; I believe. But online classes do work – talking to peers helps a lot because it shows that you are not the only one going through this and there are others who can relate,” she said.

Altogether, 11,926 students started their academic year this week in UNIMAS. We wish them all the very best!

 
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