Comment on Alec Noonan’s Argument(s)

Alec, you have chosen an excellent topic that seems to be a real problem in the academic world today. Stress, anxiety, and depression are very present in many students’ lives. It is something that so many students struggle with every single day. One thing I would suggest would be to research what programs have been put in place to help students cope with mental health struggles outside of Ohio State at other universities. I would then compare these strategies that other students use at different schools with the strategies that Ohio State has tried. Maybe other schools have unique approaches and have set up different programs. Ohio State has done an excellent job but there are other schools trying different things to help as well.

Comment on Tareq Alwadeya’s Argument(s)

Tareq, you have chosen a really excellent topic with plenty of information to conduct research on. My topic is very similar to your topic. One thing I would suggest to you would be to use data and find graphs to support your arguments/claims. I would also suggest maybe discussing another counterargument for some of your paragraphs. The ones you have chosen are fantastic, but I believe there might be more than one to talk about for each of the arguments.

Third Argument

3. The Covid-19 Pandemic has completely changed numerous living situations for students. Students living on campus are in constant fear of testing positive and being sent to quarantine housing. Students that do test positive are forced to rush and pack up their belongings to either go home for 10 days or be completely isolated in a covid dorm. This long period of isolation can lead to a rise in depression which is bad for student’s mental health. Students that live on campus and off-campus are forced to leave and gather in one area to take multiple covid tests a week.

The American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) from the American Public Health Association (APhA) publications. (n.d.). Retrieved April 21, 2021, from https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2020.305699

Second Argument

2. The Covid-19 Pandemic has altered specific ways of learning that students are custom to. For this paragraph, I will discuss the switch in learning/teaching styles from in-person to virtual learning. I will also discuss the fact that teachers have added even more work and have made certain classes even more difficult since switching to online learning. It is also true that some classes have become much too easy, and students are not learning anything by taking some classes virtually. I will then talk about how the process for deadlines for schoolwork has completely changed since moving to virtual learning.

Dhawan, S. (2020, June 20). Online learning: A panacea in the time of covid-19 crisis. Retrieved April 21, 2021, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7308790/

First Argument

  1. The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted social interaction. For this section, I will discuss all the different ways that the Covid-19 pandemic has interfered with social events and interactions for college students. Events usually provide a break for college students. It takes their mind off of their coursework. Without social events, students will have almost nothing else to do except for stress over school. This contributes to the decline in certain students’ mental health. No socials make students feel more isolated which leads to depression. It also contributes to anxiety.

Son C, Hegde S, Smith A, Wang X, Sasangohar F
Effects of COVID-19 on College Students’ Mental Health in the United States: Interview Survey Study
J Med Internet Res 2020;22(9):e21279

Outline of Research Paper

Here is the beginning of the argument for my topic of the mental health of college students during the Covid-19 pandemic:

Thesis: College is already a very stressful time in a young person’s life. It is overall an incredible experience but there are numerous sources of stress. It is a time when a person must decide what they want to do with their life. They must decide how they want to make their living and support themselves. There are many large life-altering decisions a young person makes while in college. This extremely overwhelming process has been made even heavier with the burden of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted social interaction, specific ways of learning that students are custom to, and various living situations. The main question to be answered is: Has the pandemic negatively affected the mental health of college students?

Argument #1: The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted social interaction.

Counter Argument: It is up to the students to find specific ways to interact and make friends the best they can while facing social distancing.

Argument #2: The Covid-19 Pandemic has altered specific ways of learning that students are custom to.

Counter Argument: Since being moved online students have not been taking school as seriously. Some do as little as possible to get by because it is easier to get away with coasting by in a virtual setting.

Argument #3: The Covid-19 Pandemic has completely changed numerous living situations for students.

Counter Argument: Covid cases have increased and students are being sent to isolation housing because they are not following proper safety standards.

Conclusion: The Covid-19 pandemic has affected many people’s mental health around the world. College students are among the group of people that are most affected. Being a college student during the pandemic has its challenges and there overall has been an increase in anxiety and depression levels since the beginning of the pandemic.

One (Potential) Source to be used from my annotated bibliography:

Son C, Hegde S, Smith A, Wang X, Sasangohar F
Effects of COVID-19 on College Students’ Mental Health in the United States: Interview Survey Study
J Med Internet Res 2020;22(9):e21279

I may use this source as a supporting argument saying that the pandemic has drastically affected the mental health of college students in a negative way.

Fourth Annotated Bibliography

Annotated Bibliography

Fruehwirth, J., Biswas, S., & Perreira, K. (n.d.). The Covid-19 pandemic and mental health of first-year college students: Examining the effect of Covid-19 STRESSORS using longitudinal data. Retrieved April 14, 2021, from https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0247999

This article goes into detail about the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic specifically on the mental health of first-year college students. This article was published in journals.plos.org. I found this article through searching “The effects of the covid-19 pandemic on first-year college students.” In this experiment, they tested 419 first-year students (ages 18-20) at a large public college in the state of North Carolina. They found that anxiety percentages increased from 18% to about 25.3% within the first four months of the pandemic’s start. Depression percentages increased from 21.5% to 31.7%. This article concludes by saying the mental health of college students could be helped by providing resources through virtual learning and reducing social isolation.