The sudden transition to online learning and teaching has presented students, faculty, and staff at many institutions of higher learning around the world with enormous challenges — technological, organizational but also on a human and inter-human level.

Archinect asked for responses from its global community via the ongoing survey How is your school dealing with the coronavirus outbreak? to learn how students and educators in the architecture field were dealing with the transition. In our first analysis, we looked at the main challenges as well as opportunities of working online versus onsite at school.

Today, we are focusing on the emotional impact this ongoing new situation is having on the architectural academic community.

Mood 1: Good (or trying to stay positive)

While some responses did share a positive, or at least somewhat hopeful, sentiment, these answers were clearly in the minority.

• "All good... Bored mostly haha," was the upbeat response from a student at the University of Tennessee, College of Architecture and Design in Knoxville.
• "I am okay," wrote a student from Texas.
• "A bit worried and slightly anxious but still hopeful for the worst to pass after a month," expressed this student at the Nuremberg Institute of Technology Georg Simon Ohm in Germany. "The anxiety is rather due to the uncertainty after the virus, the consequences after closing down stores and postponing deadlines etc."
• A student splitting their time working and studying at the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture and Urban Design in The Netherlands shared a deeper insight: "Still everything feels quiet strange. I am glad technology makes it possible to keep in contact with the people that surround me (checking in, helping if needed). Regarding our work field, I am concerned that this will have a stronger impact because we do not know how long this is going to take. On the other hand, I also see possibilities and opportunities arising from this. The impact on climate for instance. But also a bigger acceptance for people working from home, in my case, this situation really shows how easy it can be to work from home. I hope that bigger chances will come from all this."

Mood 2: Sad, frustrated, lonely

Not entirely surprising, the overwhelming number of responses shared feelings of anxiety, sadness, stress, loneliness, and exhaustion.

• "I haven’t really been able to focus on my work," responded an interior design student at Saxion University of Applied Sciences in Almere, The Netherlands, adding: "I have been working way slower than I normally would. It will definitely have an impact on the end result, because we are not getting extra time. I have heard from my classmates that they experience the same thing. My head is not in the right place for sketching."
• "It is very hard to stay focused on my work, the motivation just isn’t there because the future is so uncertain," described one student at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.
• One educator at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa shared a frequentlyly lamented parent dilemma: "It's stressful. My children are home as schools have been closed for 1 month."
• One student at the University of Texas at Austin: "I am sad."
• "I'm a grad student going to school across the country from most of my family, so I frequently wonder if I should return home before things get worse," answered one University of Michigan student in Ann Arbor. "It's also disappointing that my two-year degree will end like this, with no in-person final review or graduation ceremony."
• "Feelings of boredom, uncertainty, and loneliness. The news themselves aren't affecting my mood but the nation-wide quarantine is," shared by a student at the Architectural Institute in Prague, was an overwhelmingly common sentiment.
• "It is a bit surreal, to be sure," the Marketing and Communications Director at University of Arizona's College of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture pointed out. "As a member of the college leadership team, I'm involved in daily emergency response meetings via Zoom (including over the weekend). My wife has the news on (she's an elementary school teacher and is on spring break), so I always hear the latest right away. Not sure if that's good or bad..."
• One of the first responses we received when the survey was opened in mid-March was this heartfelt statement from an educator at the California State University, Sacramento: "It's weird and unsettling. It's been a week since I have seen my students. I have been focused this week to make the transition including reworking syllabi and project descriptions not to mention learning the technology. Keeping busy has kept my mind focused and occupied. I worry about my students. They have had the week off and are waiting to see how this new online approach will work. My hope is that we can reconnect even though its virtual and get back on track with our work, energy, and momentum."

It's weird and unsettling. [...] I worry about my students." — Educator at California State University, Sacramento

How have the new circumstances been affecting you emotionally? Let us know.

Archinect wants to hear from its active community of architecture students, educators, and professionals! Please share your insight in our ongoing two surveys about coronavirus response in schools as well as firms, and also let us know your experience in the comment section below. We will keep analyzing new responses as they come in.

To read our growing digest of responses to the firms survey, dig into:

• Architects share their biggest challenges transitioning to WFH
• How design professionals are optimizing their home offices
  
• Architectural professionals share the emotional impacts of COVID-19