Mental Health and Mobility after the Pandemic
Student Insight Project
Covid-19 changed our way of living and personally affected everyone. For this, EFH made an intensive study regarding how the pandemic affected mental health and mobility within students. The intention was gathering all the necessary information inorder to obtain a full insights project.
Our motivation
With this study, we wanted to understand the changes involving students’ behaviors, interests and intentions in the last 2 years. The way would be by learning about student’s financial concerns as well as mobility and travel intentions. We want to adapt and better shape our services and policies for this demographic group.
Our goal is to give importance to the effects the pandemic and emphasize the relevance of mental health. Also to understand trends in behaviors and existing programs in universities, with the intention to support them. Additionally supporting human resources departments and the decision makers who develop student support policies.
What we did
First, we conducted a research report with contrasted online articles.
The topics were divided into mental health, mobility intentions, travel intentions, work expectations, financial situation and lifestyle. On each one we develop the reality of students today, according to official sources and data on the internet. With this report, we wanted to get verified knowledge on the topic before conducting the interactive parts of the project.
In the second place, we arranged interviews with student organizations like AIESEC from Denmark and Unitrips from Spain.
This gave us information about both their changes and outcomes during the pandemic and post-pandemic. In this section, we learned that there was more flexibility to travel due to online work. But there are still nowadays many impediments to organize trips and activities due to the pandemic regulations.
For our third step, we interviewed students undergoing Erasmus.
We got some first hand information on their wellbeing, traveling and social aspects. This gave us relevant data on how online learning has mostly negatively affected young people’s mental health and learning methods. Also how students are excited to travel a lot nowadays to make up for the lost time during the pandemic.
Obviously, every student has a different story. Out of these interviews we were capable of getting the biggest outcomes of the situation in general.
Last but not least, we created an online global survey,
in order to reach people from all over the world, searching for the necessary feedback on the topics of interest.
We ran the survey for 2 months by sharing it on different social media platforms. By the end of it we reached 27 different countries! We covered topics such as university experience, Erasmus, mental health and even included a section for the Ukraine crisis. This survey gave us all we needed to finish the study and understand the current situation involving students and organizations.
The results
When all the results were in, in short, this is what we learned:
Within university experience,
all students had online learning and over half of them were able to study elsewhere. We can also state that currently, 62% of students don’t have confidence in their future career after the pandemic.
For the social aspects,
we got to know that 66% of students have returned to their previous socializing methods. This is thanks to university events, bars, social media, sports, and local meet ups.
Talking about wellbeing,
we learned that 46% of students didn’t have their universities or associations providing them with mental health support. More than half of them struggled with it in a certain way either during or after the pandemic.
Within finance and work,
more than half of the respondents who were required to travel on average had their plans changed/restricted. We found out only 22% of students received additional financial aid from their universities to help them with the situation.
For the Erasmus topic,
55% of students said the pandemic didn’t influence their willingness for mobility traveling distance. We also learned the most popular methods of finding accommodation for an Erasmus experience are Facebook and chat groups. The majority opts for a shared flat or residence halls as their preferred accommodation, followed by hostels.
For traveling,
sanitary measures, expenses, and sustainability have changed young people’s method of traveling in a 34%. The preferred accommodation for trips are Airbnbs, followed by hotels and hostels. We also learned that many respondents are currently planning to do long haul trips. This suggests that the pandemic is no longer preventing long journeys.
Addressing the Ukraine situation,
more than half of the respondents believe this crisis will subsequently stop their travels to Russia, Ukraine and surrounding countries. Plus 50% said their universities are providing enough support for those students dealing with the war.
Conclusion
To summarize, this study shows that today there is more desire to travel and long haul. There is also much more flexibility to travel due to remote work! It’s important to highlight that even though students’ mental health was affected, the majority returned to their previous socializing habits. They don’t avoid anymore large gatherings or shared accommodation.
It is adequate to acknowledge the relevance of social media and technology today. Not only for support and connection but to find accommodation as well. This data shows in-person activities and quitting the taboo of mental health are key highlights we should take into account.
To conclude, after this project, we now know more about students’ feelings regarding the impact of the pandemic. All this in the realms of social life, professional and financial concerns, mobility and travel intentions.
