Vaccination drives have officially started everywhere. As an international student, it gives me a sense of relief but also a little disappointment. No, I’m not anti-vaccine, for sure—even after my post-shot high fever, metallic taste in my mouth, and sore muscles. In my opinion, vaccination is a way better solution than waiting for herd immunity. However, I’m upset because of the unequal vaccine availability and distribution around the world. It affects me and other international students who are studying remotely and are waiting to fly to Canada.
It affects us because, according to the latest rules, fully vaccinated students will not have to quarantine (I’m guessing that in the future those who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 might not get to travel at all). I was really lucky to get my first dose in a country of 1.39 billion people where we are facing vaccine shortages.
I really want to be able to write about my experience as an international student in Canada, not outside of it. Everyone, including me, is trying to be patient enough and still keeping our hopes up. We all really want to be able to study in person at Camosun in the fall. Attending face-to-face classes has been made possible way earlier than we expected it to, and we’re excited.
Above all, I really respect the norms and travel restrictions that the Canadian government is implementing, keeping in mind the safety of its citizens with new variants of COVID-19 surfacing.
Every day we international students ask ourselves if we will be able to study in person for the fall or if we’ll have to study online. I’m asking myself these questions all the time. Most of us are registering for our courses for fall, but we really don’t know what will happen. We’re not sure about anything. Everyone I know has either booked their flights or are still in some state of confusion about it, as flight tickets are really expensive these days.
Everything has been unpredictable since last year. It’s still like that, but we as international students still hope for the best. Things may not be completely in our favour right now but soon everything will be all right, and we just hope to be prepared for whatever is in store for us this fall semester. We still don’t know what the college has planned for international students who will be enrolled in the fall semester but might not get to travel due to changing vaccination regulations or other travel bans and restrictions.
The only thing we can do right now is to try to get fully vaccinated, stay at home, stay safe, and be hopeful for the upcoming fall semester, hopeful that we might finally get to attend lectures at Camosun College.
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