6 Things College Students Can Do During the COVID-19 Pandemic!

COVID-19 pandemic has forced students into isolation, something that is unheard of from all college students who only like to be confined to a room if it had plenty of frat or sorority buddies and unlimited booze. Even the more reserved students would still get fed up from being cooped up in their rooms. But this pandemic is not to be taken lightly, with social distancing being the word of the month! And while you are isolating yourself, here are 6 things college students can do during the COVID-19 pandemic.

1. Provide Help in Essential Services

Now is the time to help if you are enrolled in medical studies or any other form of study that is either directly or indirectly linked to essential services. Currently, medical students, even if they are not full-fledged physicists, could contribute towards assisting medical staff in the local area, fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic. Other places where a student can help out are childcare, caregiving, product delivery, first responders, food services, or other community-based services. 

2. Create a Routine

Create a routine out of the following with the first one being mandatory. This will keep you occupied daily.

• Attend study classes online if such arrangements were made possible by your university. 
• A language – there are classes online where one can learn the basics of a foreign language.
• Musical instruments- Learn a few chords, now is the time! 
• Read – if you had been complaining about not getting time to read a book, now is the time to hunt your choice of books from online libraries.
• Binge-watching – we are sure you are doing this already, but go ahead!
• Craft – learn a different craft if you interested such as knitting, embroidery, origami, woodcraft, pottery and glass crafts, etc.
• Pets – they won’t let you forget about them anyway! Spending your day with a pet is bound to make you cheerful. Some people have actually gone out and adopted animals. Not such a bad idea!
• Gardening – you might be in your hostel or a rental place, but keeping small potted plants might just give you the peace of mind that you have been looking for. 

3. Add To Your Skills

Work on or learn those skills that could add to your resume, for example, MS Office, Quickbooks, programming languages, Cloud Management, technical report writing, budgeting, graphic designing, SEO, social media marketing, typography, etc. through online videos.

4. Mentorships

While there are numerous online courses and videos to help you learn, you might also consider getting one-to-one mentorships. Alumni Alliances is a professional alumni network where you could try to get in touch with mentors. It also provides the opportunity for you to give mentorships to fellow juniors. 

5. Resume and Interview Preparations

While there is a lot of negative buzzes around unemployment, you should keep preparing for interviews and update your resume. Don’t forget to add any certifications or skills that you are have received or learned or volunteer work. You should also include your social media handles or profiles such as LinkedIn, Quora – to show that you are an expert in giving business advice, Stack Overflow, Github, personal blog links, etc.

6. Crowdfunding Campaigns

There are a lot of people creating crowdfunding campaigns to get financial help or donations to help the community during the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, there are a lot of stranded students, especially international students, who are not able to do part-time jobs and pay their rent or afford essential services. You can also start a crowdfunding campaign to help fellow students. But to give yourself a better probability of getting financial help, why not start crowdfunding or fundraising campaigns on Alumni Alliances? Since it is an alumni network, there a better chance that you would be liaising with people who are not complete strangers.

These are the 6 things college students can do during the COVID-19 pandemic. You can also add on to the list. Please tell us in the comments section below and bookmark Alumni Insider for more informative blogs like this!

References:
1. Gif – Giphy.com