How Has the COVID Pandemic Impacted Students and their Career Goals
Start Date
2023 2:15 PM
Location
Alter Hall Poster Session 1 - 2nd floor
Abstract
This study explores the impact of the recent pandemic and how it’s affected students going into the workforce. We’ve done surveys and interviews with junior and senior students from a variety of schools all across Ohio. Our questions were focused on topics surrounding mental health, impact on learning skills, and changes in career paths. For the surveys and interviews, we narrowed our questionnaire to three questions. We wanted to know how the pandemic has impacted a students’ learning/skills, opportunities & difficulties, and whether or not their intended career path had changed due to COVID. We also collected other background information including the students' year, major, university, and how their classes were taught during the pandemic. Lastly, we asked questions about their confidence and whether or not their universities were properly setting themselves up for success.
Our initial findings came from our own first-hand surveys. Based on the schools we gathered from information, these findings only apply to Ohio junior and senior college students. The questionnaire was designed to see how the pandemic positively or negatively impacted particular student groups. One of our initial findings is how a lack of hands-on learning skills forced students to learn a separate new set of skills all together. For instance, students in some majors such as biology and chemistry felt pressure to switch majors as a result of losing that traditional style of learning. While other majors such as computer science said that the change had actually helped a lot more. Another initial finding is that the greatest difficulty moving back to regular in-person classes was interacting with people again. Changes in students’ learning environment certainly impacted performance, but the biggest hurdle was relearning to use social skills again. Simply being around other people again would never be the same. Even after being told to resume school as it once was, people were still hesitant to interact with one another.
How Has the COVID Pandemic Impacted Students and their Career Goals
Alter Hall Poster Session 1 - 2nd floor
This study explores the impact of the recent pandemic and how it’s affected students going into the workforce. We’ve done surveys and interviews with junior and senior students from a variety of schools all across Ohio. Our questions were focused on topics surrounding mental health, impact on learning skills, and changes in career paths. For the surveys and interviews, we narrowed our questionnaire to three questions. We wanted to know how the pandemic has impacted a students’ learning/skills, opportunities & difficulties, and whether or not their intended career path had changed due to COVID. We also collected other background information including the students' year, major, university, and how their classes were taught during the pandemic. Lastly, we asked questions about their confidence and whether or not their universities were properly setting themselves up for success.
Our initial findings came from our own first-hand surveys. Based on the schools we gathered from information, these findings only apply to Ohio junior and senior college students. The questionnaire was designed to see how the pandemic positively or negatively impacted particular student groups. One of our initial findings is how a lack of hands-on learning skills forced students to learn a separate new set of skills all together. For instance, students in some majors such as biology and chemistry felt pressure to switch majors as a result of losing that traditional style of learning. While other majors such as computer science said that the change had actually helped a lot more. Another initial finding is that the greatest difficulty moving back to regular in-person classes was interacting with people again. Changes in students’ learning environment certainly impacted performance, but the biggest hurdle was relearning to use social skills again. Simply being around other people again would never be the same. Even after being told to resume school as it once was, people were still hesitant to interact with one another.
