Tips For Students: How To Make Most Of Lockdown

Monica Malhotra Kandhari Apr 13, 2020

These are challenging times that we are living in. The fight against the pandemic COVID-19 has necessitated drastic measures to be taken. Educational institutions in many parts of the world have been shut and citizens are being actively advised to practice social distancing and stay indoors. To effectively slow down the spread of the infection, the country has been put under lockdown and all public places such malls, entertainment centres and shops barring a few essential services have been ordered shut. Public movement is also curtailed with citizens advised to avoid going out except for emergencies.

Responding to the prolonged closure of schools and colleges across the country, universities, online content providers and publishers have made their online resources free to access. At a time like this, it is advisable that students practice self-study at home by browsing through the important questions and looking for answers and solutions to their doubts. The MBD Group too, have given free access to course content from class 1 to 12 so that students can continue to study no matter what. The platform also provides online assessments and will be of great help to students who are forced to miss school and spend time indoors due to the nationwide lockdown.

For college students, the availability of free time presents the perfect opportunity to brush up their resumes by enrolling in one or more of the various MOOCs that are available online. These courses are a great way to broaden one's horizon on interesting subjects or learn a new skill. Online certificate courses can come in handy during the job search later on. For the interested, there are multiple sources on the internet that provides online live classes, step-by-step tutorials and how-to videos that can be useful in learning a new skill or clearing doubts and understanding critical concepts.

With entire online catalogues available for free access, School students can take this as an opportunity to study next year’s syllabus using e-books and other e-contents. Educational boards such as the NCERT too, have their entire syllabus available online and by productively leveraging these resources, students can be well prepared for school as and when they re-open for the next session. For students that are anxious about the impact of the lockdown on their studies can benefit from this free access top quality contents online and catch up on their school or college work.

Apart from academic pursuits, there are other productive ways to spend free time at hand. The extended lockdown has opened up opportunities for people to rekindle their love for reading. Books which have been the primary source of education and an excellent habit that has faded owing to lifestyle changes and the advent of social media. Now is the time to finally read that book you’ve been meaning to read for a while now or to re-read a favourite book or novel. Spending time with books is one activity that is unlikely to cause any remorse and leave one with a sense of satisfaction.

Being confined to homes is bound to have consequences. The situation calls for maintaining mental equilibrium and nothing better than utilising this downtime to bond with the family and catching up on each other’s experiences for which we are perennially challenged for a time in today’s busy world. Personal health and hygiene are important for safety at this time and we must remember to motivate each other and keep the morale of the entire family up in testing times like this.

The pandemic is taking a heavy toll on the world and the true extent of its impact are still unknown. With social distancing the norm, many will turn to the online world and in doing so, it is the responsibility of each one of us to be cautious about privacy concerns. Responsible use of the internet, and social media, in particular, can help in sensitising the general public and preventing unnecessary panic. We must all take care not to forward any unverified information related to COVID-19 at this time.