Page 104 - Movers, Shapers, and Everything in Between: Influencers of the International Student Experience

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Chapter 5
you build your network and meet new people, and we haven’t gotten than experience like pre-COVID students did,” explained one student. A student from Pakistan explained that for students from outside Malaysia, “our homesickness goes away when we meet our friends, so it was very difficult to talk to walls and not meet friends during the pandemic. That played a role for some in not performing well academically.”
Interviews revealed all of the IBCs made efforts to maintain a sense of community online during the COVID-19 pandemic—for example, creating a weekly bulletin with photos from campus, keeping students up to date using social media, and holding events like graduation ceremonies online; however, leaders, staff, and students alike acknowledge that it is difficult to replace the benefits of being together physically. One head of an IBC remarked that “even with all this great tech, we cannot replace that sense of community... there are benefits to being physically together on campus, doing activities together, being part of a community.” Likewise, all students felt that there was no effective substitute for in-person interaction with peers.
The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted IBCs to develop more campus resources for student mental health and academic support, as opposed to relying on those of the home campus. IBCs dedicated more resources to support students, including, for example, hiring mental health counselors, launching wellbeing seminars, opening a mental health hotline, and appointing a virtual wellbeing officer. Students were supported in their daily lives as well—for example, a student from Saudi Arabia recounted that the university helped students living on campus by providing free food vouchers and food delivery for one month, despite it being summer break. Overall, the pandemic prompted IBCs to focus more energy and resources on mental health and wellbeing, rather than relying on the home campus or simply not having them available.
Interviewees also reported initiatives specific to the IBC to offer more academic support to students. A lecturer reported that the IBC now