Graduate student Sandra Romero didn’t end the first year of her PhD at the University of Alberta quite the way she expected.
After the novel coronavirus prompted the widespread move to online classes, the international student found her world changing quickly. “For me, the first problem was finances.
I was going to work as a summer research assistant, but I would be working with kids at school. When they closed, that project got cancelled,” Romero said. “My income got cut off by 70 per cent.
It was difficult.” Though she remains a student at the U of A, she traveled home to Guadalajara, Mexico to finish the semester. “It just didn’t make sense to stay.