Impact of the COVID-19 Lockdown on Architecture Students' Well-Being

Background

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Malaysian government implemented Movement Control Order (MCO) on 18 March 2020. Since then, there have been several other measures of Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO), Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO), and Enhanced Movement Control Order (EMCO), which cause uncertainties as well as confusion to the general public (Chung, 2020). In addition, these temporary measures disrupt people's lifestyles and affect their well-being in general, especially university students.

Apart from complying with the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE) instruction, universities will make announcements to inform their students about directions on teaching and learning for respective schools. For example, Taylor’s University, a private university in Malaysia, announced that hybrid learning with a mix of online and face-to-face learning would be conducted from the beginning of the year 2021 (Menon, 2021). As a result, architecture students can opt for either online classes or physical face-to-face classes on campus, except for first-year and final year students, who are required to attend physical courses as mandated by the regulatory body Lembaga Arkitek Malaysia (LAM).

Architecture students face tremendous pressure following numerous instructions from different parties, such as the government, university, school, faculty, and lecturer. For international students, they will have to deal with the immigration office. In addition, the students have to comply with the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) mandated by the government on social distancing. Some students must carry out a minimum of 10 days of self-isolation before entering the campus (Driscoll, 2021). All these ‘new requirements’ impact the students psychologically when they first return to the campus, as opposed to before the pandemic.