COVID-19 crisis: The wait continues...

BENGALURU: The new year was supposed to bring renewed hope for Ishita Seth, who was all set to fly to the UK for her Master's degree. The discovery of a new strain of the virus and the subsequent flight ban brought back uncertainty. “I deferred my admission from September to January so I didn’t have an option to push it further, I would have to apply again. I have to attend the classes that begin online and hope I’m able to fly out in February,” says Seth, who chose to not go to the UK this month.

Many are in the same boat as Seth. With schools and colleges reopening in Bengaluru, things seem to be regaining a semblance of the old normal but for students like Seth, who applied to study abroad, things still remain stuck in limbo. Take, for instance, Harsh Bagrecha, who was pursuing an MBA at New York Institute of Technology.

The Bengalurean returned to the city in May last year with the hope that he would be able to resume classes again by August but his university decided to continue remote classes. Having attended one-and-a-half semester online from Bengaluru, Bagrecha eventually took the “hard call” to defer his last semester to fall of 2021. “This doesn’t just push my plans for the future but the worst drawback was legally losing the opportunity to be able to find a job in the US. I need to be enrolled in the university for two semesters in a row in order to be eligible for jobs,” explains Bagrecha.  

Having given up his old accommodation, he will have to find a new place to stay – a task he feels will be harder to achieve given that the stay period will be for a shorter period of his final semester. One of the main factors that prompted this decision was the time difference that came into play while pursuing classes online. “Even though I had classes only on three days, the timings were erratic  – 4am, 6am or 10pm to 4am. The sleep cycle took a toll on my health,” he says.

Online classes may have proven to be a boon in ensuring education stays afloat but for those going abroad, it takes away from their foremost reason to go down this route - the experience of exploring a new culture. So when Sonali Bachu returned to Bengaluru to complete the remainder of her MSc in marketing remotely, she advised other peers looking to go abroad to hold on to their plans. “Online learning doesn’t give you the whole experience. It’s especially hard to figure out when your group assignments are with classmates from different time zones,” she says. 

Among new variants of the virus are also updates about vaccines, which has led to many being hopeful that things may improve for those applying to study abroad in the 2021 intake. According to Pooja Kishin, branch manager for SI UK Bangalore – an educational consultancy – the team has seen demand for UK studies throughout last year. “We have seen the situation getting stable with the availability of vaccines in the UK. International students would also be eligible to get vaccinated at no additional cost.

Applicants and prospective students are confident and open enough to consider studying abroad in the UK despite the ongoing pandemic,” she explains. Shaista Baljee says going forward, the situation is only expected to be something we have more control over. “Students are applying to more countries to see how the situation pans out. Canada, US, Europe, extending UK to Ireland, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia are popular. They are also realising we just have to embrace the Covid-19 situation. Students are also feeling reassured by the measures international universities are taking,” says the founder and MD of Ivy Aspire Education Consulting.