My project is about how students with mental health issues are combatting both a pandemic and their classes at the same time. I chose this topic because I knew I could get a lot of information on this topic as well as a large variety of responses. In addition, I believe I can briefly talk about another topic idea I had (students putting off classes/graduation) which will make the article more interesting to read and add even more relevancy.
As far as finding sources, I currently have two interviews planned. The first one is with my roommate who actually took the semester off because of the troubles they were facing regarding their mental health and having everything online. While my other interviewee is not taking time off, they did significantly cut their workload down. I’m also talking to a possible source who took on a larger workload than usual in order to get multiple different sides of how the pandemic is affecting people’s studies. All of these people have faced mental health issues including anxiety, depression, etc. so I wanted to explore many different sides in my project. I also found a podcast, surveys, and more data that I can reference.
I found this article which I think will be very beneficial for my project. It talks about how students’ mental health is continuing to worsen as the pandemic goes on. It does not incorporate any videos but I think it would have greatly benefited if it did. It has a story-telling type of structure with a lot of quotes from different people. It might have gained even more attention if instead of writing it down, they bounced from person to person in an interview.
This article is another example of an article that could have benefited from using audio/video. It is about a study where people were surveyed about how their mental health has worsened based purely on factors created by the pandemic. While it was very informative, it did not have any quotes from anyone to make it more interesting. If they wanted to keep the article the way it was, adding a video of interviewing people based on the different categories listed would have made it more pleasurable for the audience.
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