Lys Lin, GED’15

Lys Lin, GED’15, a graduate of our Interdisciplinary Studies in Human Development and Reading/Writing/Literacy programs, has helped international students stay connected during COVID-19 as program coordinator and student advisor at New Mind Education, a partner of North Carolina State University. She writes, “My team and I are international educators serving first-year international college students. Our students are mostly from China, so they have been undergoing anxiety and concerns since the beginning when the virus hit China. We have transitioned our advising and classes online, even our student life activities. International students are likely to be the last ones on campus when schools are closed. The sense of security and community becomes crucial for them, and continuing online contact ensures that they are still connected with the outside world, and not completely left alone in the pandemic. Part of our focus is to challenge our students to step out of their comfort zone, so when quarantine started, we sent out weekly challenges for students to accomplish. We recently had our graduation via zoom. We wanted to celebrate the students' achievements and growth for the past year, so we adjusted our graduation activities and formats, and it went really well. Our organization works with colleges on multiple aspects. From the admissions and recruitment level, online outreach events went surprisingly well. The universities and our office are now seeing the possibilities of virtual events in the future. Our team has tried to build and maintain camaraderie with weekly meetings that shared good news and updates along with serious business talk. We also use calendar and planning tools to keep track of our work.