Arpana Upadhyay was left alone at home in Nepal when a 7.8 magnitude earthquake shook the country in April 2015, interrupting her last semester in high school.
Her parents had gone to India for her sister’s college graduation. While aftershocks lasted for two weeks, Upadhyay camped outside in her backyard, not knowing when the ground would stop trembling.
Five years later, that memory resurfaces as Upadhyay, now a senior biology student at Mississippi University for Women, is again alone and far from her family amid yet another crisis to which she can see no end.
As the global pandemic of COVID-19, a disease caused by the novel coronavirus, claims tens of thousands of lives worldwide, college students have been urged to go back to their permanent residence. Upadhyay, who lives on campus, finds herself with no way to return home.
Upadhyay is one of many college students in the Golden Triangle area who are presented with the same challenge. Many students, some low-income or international, are staying on or near campus as school operations come to a halt.
Roughly 500 students at Mississippi State University in Starkville and 72 students at MUW are still living on campus, said both Regina Hyatt, vice president for student affairs at MSU, and MUW spokesperson Anika Perkins.
For Upadhyay, going back to Nepal is not an option because the entire country is on lockdown during the pandemic.
“I have nowhere to go here,” Upadhyay said. “And I can’t fly back home because … no one is coming into (Nepal) anymore.”
Arush Aryal, senior MUW biology student and Upadhyay’s friend, also is from Nepal. Unlike Upadhyay, Aryal lives off campus but is nonetheless stranded in Columbus.
Poised to graduate in May, Aryal had planned to invite his parents to the United States to watch him at the ceremony. Now with the graduation walk postponed, he said, everything is in the air.
“This came at the worst possible time,” Aryal said. “It feels terrible, but it’s something that is not in my hands or in the university’s hands.”
Also unsure about her graduation in May, Upadhyay is reminded of her rocky experience graduating high school because of the earthquake.
“I don’t know what it is about me graduating,” she said.
‘It’s even worse this time’
Upadhyay relied on her campus job as a supplemental instruction leader to pay the bills before MUW moved classes online. Now, she said, her job is no more and her bank account is feeling the pressure.
“I’m old enough that I can do everything by myself,” she said. “But if this goes on for another month, which it probably will, I’m probably going to rely back on my parents again.”
Aryal shares the same concern. Work couldn’t pay tuition, he said, but it helped him with out-of-pocket expenses on supplies. Soon, he said, he will have to cut his expenses, starting with online subscriptions to apps like Spotify.
“We have lost that source (of income) now,” he said. “I think I could go to my parents for extra money for me to finish this semester, because there is no certainty that this situation would resolve very soon.”
For both Aryal and Upadhyay, this pandemic is much worse than the 2015 earthquake.
Aryal remembers being in Kathmandu preparing for his SAT and English language testing when the earthquake hit. For days he lived in tents, waiting for his father to arrange for travelers to bring him home to Chitwan, a city in central Nepal.
“Now it’s worse,” Aryal said. “You couldn’t get into your house back then. Now you can’t get out of your house. …We are living it all over again.”
A sturdy building could survive an earthquake, Aryal said, but cannot necessarily keep out the virus.
“You can catch it from everyone,” he said. “Unknowingly, you can transmit it to someone (else).”
Help is available
Fortunately, Upadhyay said, some services at MUW are still running. The school’s cafeteria opens twice a day, allowing her to order brunch and dinner to go. For students struggling financially, the school has set up a student emergency fund on its website for anyone who wishes to apply, she said.
Aryal is among those who applied for the fund. The money, up to $250, can be used to help cover some of his expenses.
“We give (the school) the estimate of the expenses,” Aryal said, “and we tell them why we are applying.”
In addition to the fund, the school continues to offer services online, including library, counseling, writing center and information technology services, said Jennifer Miles, vice president for student affairs at MUW.
At MSU, all 16 residence buildings are open to the roughly 500 students who remain on campus, Hyatt said. The cafeteria is open to students who wish to order takeout food, and online support services also are available. School staff have also received training on cleaning, she said, with a focus on “high-touching areas” such as doors and door knobs.
All 15 counselors at MSU are providing counseling services online, Hyatt said, and students can schedule appointments over the phone or via telemedicine.
To help students with all kinds of expenses in emergency situations, Hyatt said the school has opened up applications for the student relief fund, which was set up after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005. The fund is powered by donations from school alumni and friends, she said.
There is no cap to how much a student can receive, Hyatt said, and each case is evaluated on an individual basis. The money can cover gas, internet access as well as other types of spending.
“We’ve had about 300 students making requests of the fund since this started,” she said. “We’ve received donations in this current situation of over $13,000 to that fund to help support students.”
Aside from help from the school, the student government association at MUW is also helping students, compiling a list of available community resources for those who remain on campus.
The list, kept online as a Google spreadsheet and updated daily, is a joint effort between the association and the Office of Student Life at MUW, said John Jacob Miller, president of the association.
“Originally we were looking at building a list of what stores have what items,” Miller said. “Because toilet paper and bread and milk was unable to be found. … A lot of students were concerned about food insecurity.”
But with information from community partners, the project developed into a running list of available resources and where to find them.
“We have gotten news that it’s well received, and we believe that’s useful, and people are using it,” Miller said.
Resources
■ To reach out to be a part of the MUW student government association initiative, community members can contact Miller at [email protected] or Jessica Harpole, director of student life at MUW, at [email protected].
■ Both universities have dedicated websites for coronavirus-related information. Check out MSU’s campus guidance at msstate.edu/newsroom/article/2020/03/campus-guidance-covid-19 and MUW’s page at muw.edu/disease.
■ To apply for the student relief fund, contact [email protected] at MSU or go to muw.edu/emergencyaid/fund to apply at MUW.
■ Those in need for counseling services can call 662-325-2091 to schedule appointments with MSU counselors and 662-329-7748 for the MUW Counseling Center.
■ To access the community resource list compiled by the student government association at MUW, go to the Facebook page of the association at facebook.com/muw.sga.
Yue Stella Yu was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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