Im/Mobilities during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Perspectives from International Graduate Students Studying in the Southern United States

Abstract

The background of this study is situated within the COVID-19 pandemic as an acute challenge with chronic issues that international graduate students have faced continuously. With the pandemic serving as a critical incident, we highlight the political, systemic, and personal fragilities of international graduate students studying in the southern United States. The methods for our study were informed by a narrative inquiry approach combined with a systematic literature review to connect with the conceptual framework of Avison and Turner’s chronic strains and Robertson’s conception of timescales. The findings highlight three broad themes: shifting immigration policies and travel uncertainty, institutional responses, and mental health stressors and personal concerns. The study conclusions illuminate suggestions for institutions and policymakers, including clarifying policies, communicating better with international graduate students, and providing tailored counseling support. These suggestions are significant for improving international graduate students’ well-being in the face of any acute issues that may arise in the future.

1. Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic spread throughout the world in early 2020, setting off a global panic where much of the world shut down. Higher education institutions quickly rushed to transition their classes to an online format or chose to cancel semester classes altogether [1]. The pandemic had widespread impacts for college students broadly, including negative academic and personal implications related to increased mental health concerns, which disproportionately impacted students with minoritized social identities as well as students who were caregivers of other adults [2]. Graduate students in particular faced specific challenges such as mental health concerns stemming from the impacts of COVID-19 [3]. Furthermore, for international graduate students studying in the United States, the pandemic led to various academic and personal challenges in balancing home lives, work, and classes while navigating the effects that came with the pandemic’s presence across the globe. Such challenges included possibly losing on-campus housing and jobs, facing food insecurity, and caring for children and other dependents [4]. As a result, the COVID-19 pandemic underscored the new and latent im/mobilities surrounding international graduate students studying in the United States.

Historically, international graduate students have had to make sense of shifting international policy, reconcile home country and destination country cultural norms, navigate the pros and cons of studying abroad, and understand their economic utility as students studying in the United States [5,6,7]. Leading up to the pandemic, international graduate students were navigating a nationalistic rhetoric emboldened by the Trump presidential administration (e.g., [8]). The arrival of the global pandemic illuminated neoracist attitudes towards East Asian-presenting students as a result of the racialized discourse against Asian people viewed as bearers of disease [9]. Similarly, the U.S. Black/White historical racial tensions were also heightened during the pandemic, creating a level of stress and uncertainty for Black-presenting students. Academically, international students faced uncertainty due to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP), which considered temporary exemptions for nonimmigrant students taking online courses during the fall semester of 2020 due to campus closures [10]. Later in July 2020, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security barred international students from studying as fully online students [10,11], which ran contrary to the main accommodation provided by institutions of higher education during the pandemic. This update allowed for international students to attend in a hybrid model [10], but, due to precarious campus closures, this mixture of in-person and online coursework was not an option. The American Council on Education [12] released a statement noting the harm of this federal rule that “provides confusion and complexity rather than certainty and clarity” (para 1.), as institutions that pivoted to remote instruction would be forced to cause international students “to leave the United States and face an impossible return to another country that has closed its borders” (para. 2). Thus, the past two years have been contentious years for international students studying in the United States. To better understand this situation, we interviewed 21 international graduate students at a southern U.S. institution of higher education to understand their perspectives on experiences in college during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Understanding how international students perceive the dynamics of international graduate student life in the United States will elucidate how higher education institutions can better support this student population to persist and remain during contentious times. Depending on their country of origin, crises and critical events may not be a new phenomenon to international students; however, they may not be an expectation when first choosing to study in the United States. Thus, the purpose of this study is to demonstrate how COVID-19, as an acute issue, continued to emphasize the chronic issues that international graduate students have faced continuously. With the COVID-19 pandemic serving as a critical incident, we will highlight the political, systemic, and personal fragilities of international graduate students studying in the southern United States.

1.1. Graduate Student Contexts and COVID-19

Research on the overall graduate student population in the United States has indicated that the realities of graduate school can lead these students to experience isolation and mental health challenges regarding stress and anxiety [2,13]. These graduate school challenges are further complicated by navigating structural oppression for students with intersecting minoritized social identities [14,15]. Additionally, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated these concerns for graduate students. Although physical lockdowns and isolation may now be lessened compared to the start of the pandemic, mental health effects persist [16]. These effects include “the illness anxiety and sense of foreboding inherent to an ongoing and constantly changing crisis, grief at the loss of loved ones, ongoing isolation from peer and mentor support, increased financial insecurity, or even just changes in routine” [16] (para. 4). Understanding these realities faced by graduate students broadly sets the foundation for understanding how COVID-19 impacted some international graduate students in nuanced ways.

1.2. Contemporary Context of COVID-19 for International Graduate Students

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, international graduate students felt extreme stress as they were unsure how to respond as everything shut down. Various students experienced confusion regarding whether they were allowed to stay in the United States, and they had limited time to decide if they should remain or go back to their home countries where their families were [17,18]. While some students returned home as cases increased in the United States [19], others remained on or near campus. Yet, the international graduate students who remained in the United States felt concerned for their families in their home countries [20] as well as their own safety. For instance, international graduate students found the lack of clear guidance on safety measures in the United States confusing as they received mixed messages about following protocols [21]. Seeing inconsistent adherence to safety measures, including mask mandates, further exacerbated feelings of uncertainty in responding to the pandemic and physical health concerns [22]. Additionally, international graduate students faced mental health challenges and loneliness as they navigated the pandemic, with many students remaining far away from home [23].

As various colleges and universities transitioned classes and student services to an online format, international students faced various academic challenges [24]. Some international students moved back home and faced internet connectivity issues, which complicated their transition to online classes [19]. As a result, some international graduate students experienced adjustment issues and faced challenges with decreased interpersonal interactions with professors and other students [23]. As students began to adjust to this “new normal” in their academic studies, some international graduate students experienced issues with work–life boundaries, time management, and motivation in their academic coursework [23].

In addition, international graduate students, particularly those from East Asia, were subjected to xenophobic sentiments as they were considered threats to the well-being of the United States [9]. Much of this was due to the assumption that COVID-19 originated in Wuhan, China [9,16,19,25]. Through xenophobic insults such as “Kung-flu” and “Chinese virus,” which were publicly said by then-President Trump, Asian international students were framed as scapegoats of the global pandemic [9,16,19,25]. As a result, Asian international students were subjected to a rise in similar behaviors and anti-Asian violence from U.S. college students who were emboldened by the President [9,16,19,25]. These insults were reported by U.S. college students, and some international graduate students reported even being called “Corona,” a reference to the virus [16]. While such discriminatory experiences invoked anger and other negative feelings, Asian international students could not speak out due to concerns for their physical well-being [19].

Despite these discriminatory experiences, higher education institutions have been largely negligent in providing services to address the xenophobia and violence that international students faced during the onset of the pandemic [22]. This impacted the well-being of East Asian and non-East Asian international students alike as international graduate students of Color felt unwelcomed by domestic students and feared experiencing discrimination as international students and students racialized in the United States [9]. Thus, the pandemic not only illuminated the challenges that international graduate students already faced prior to the pandemic but heightened them [16].

Policies at the institutional and federal levels placed undue distress and confusion on international graduate students. Campus shutdowns of institutional campuses brought job suspensions for many international graduate students as they were limited to on-campus employment and Optional Practical Training (OPT) programs. This led to additional concerns about students’ financial situations as sponsors and institutions of higher education increasingly suspended financial assistance as the pandemic continued. Therefore, affording basic necessities became an undue burden on international graduate students [16]. In addition, international students were prevented from benefiting from COVID-19 economic relief packages that domestic college students received due to eligibility requirements in the policies that provided emergency relief, such as the CARES Act [26]. The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement also attempted to implement a policy in July 2020 where international graduate students would be required to take classes in person or would be deported to their home countries [16]. This policy used international students as hostages to force higher education institutions to open fully rather than maintain classes online [11,12,27]. Consequently, international students were forced into a situation where they faced a decision to prioritize either their health, safety, and well-being or their academic endeavors and, through visa requirements, their place in the United States. In the following days, international graduate students felt “powerless” [16] (p.10) in this situation as they faced an uncertain future in the United States.

Furthermore, international students had ambivalent perceptions of their institutions during this time. Whereas international graduate students were grateful that their colleges and universities provided support and services during the pandemic, such as food and transportation services, they also felt that their institutions were largely quiet and invisible in demonstrating their support for international students [16]. Even as higher education institutions spoke out against the policy issued by ICE, this support was undermined by statements that commodified international students as resources that benefit and elevate the United States’ global standing, rather than seeing international students as human beings [25,27,28]. The lack of vocalized support and advocacy from higher education institutions illuminated the paradox of higher education as both inclusive and exclusive towards international graduate students [16]. Although this policy was ultimately rescinded, the impact of this policy had long-lasting consequences. International graduate students who experienced the chaos invoked by this policy, Castiello-Gutiérrez and Li, [27] stated, “The issuance of that guidance made us feel vulnerable, that our rights could be stripped, and that our struggles could be minimized or neglected,” (p. i). With the issuance of this policy, as well as the exclusion of international students’ eligibility to receive emergency relief aid through the CARES Act, international students pondered whether the United States saw their worth as human beings, rather than as commodities for the country to use for its own gain [26,27].

1.3. Conceptual Framework

The current context of COVID-19 provides a unique frame of reference for examining international graduate student experiences. Therefore, we address the convergence of global health challenges with international mobility restrictions through a conceptual framework that uses health and migration theories. Specifically, we borrow from Avison and Turner’s [29] findings that life events provide insights into both acute eventful stressors and chronic life strains. We then overlay the concepts of time and space by infusing Robertson’s [30] conceptual framework of migration temporalities, particularly regarding timescale, “to describe different levels of temporal orderings and events” (p. 5). The confluence of global health and migration is a result of “a convergence of disease patterns, biomedical knowledge, and health strategies” [31] (p. 188), which necessitates an understanding of the spatial and temporal logics affected by globalization.

Avison and Turner [29] focused on evaluating the effects of life events on psychological distress, with an emphasis on clinical depression. Although the current study does not address clinical depression or mental health challenges, findings from Avison and Turner indicated that chronic strains affected the participants in their study more than acute stressors. Within the current study, the COVID-19 pandemic can be labeled as an acute condition, which is typically defined as being sudden in onset and lasting a short time. Yet, when examining the international graduate student literature, several consistent issues emerged that indicated chronic issues affecting this student population. As highlighted by Avison and Turner, chronic strains often cause more difficulties and challenges “because they represent unresolved, continuing difficulties for the individual” [29] (p. 261). Accordingly, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted both acute and chronic challenges for international graduate students.

The acute and chronic issues from the pandemic are situated within time and space. Typically, international students are erroneously viewed as sojourners who travel within fixed spaces and linear trajectories. Rather, international students embody “translocal subjectivities” [32] (p. 168), engaging in “both geographical mobility and multiple forms of ongoing emplacement” [32] (p. 168) as well as identity development within multiple locations. Yet, the development of the student is situated within larger global systems, including national and global structures. Thus, we simplify and borrow from Robertson’s [30] conception of timescales, which includes three levels: macro, meso, and micro. The macro timescale includes the “global political economy, particularly around spatially unequal processes of capital accumulation” [29]. Meso timescales include “migration regimes” [30] (p. 5), which include national and institutional systems and agents, all of which facilitate different aspects of mobility. The micro timescale emphasizes the individual within “the lifecourse” [30] (p. 5) and includes people and places that are most immediate to the individual. The timescales allow us to situate our findings, particularly with previous literature highlighting chronic issues and findings from participants illuminating the acute issues raised during the COVID-19 pandemic.

2. Materials and Methods

The current study is informed by a larger narrative inquiry study [33,34] that was combined with a systematic literature review for our findings. We chose to include both interview data and themes from a systematic literature review to elucidate the acute nature of the pandemic (i.e., narrative inquiry) as well as the chronic nature of issues affecting international students and scholars (i.e., systematic literature review).

2.1. Data Collection and Analysis

In our narrative inquiry study, we recruited 21 international students from one institution. For the purpose of this paper, we only included findings from graduate students, which included master’s (n = 5) and doctoral (n = 13) students. Of our participants, 10 self-identified as female and eight self-identified as male. Participants represented a variety of regions from around the world, including South Asia (n = 7), East Asia (n = 4), West Africa (n = 3), South America (n = 2), Southeast Asia (n = 1), and Eastern Europe (n = 1). Each participant chose their own pseudonyms, which are used throughout this manuscript.

The institution, founded over 200 years ago, is located in the Southeastern United States and typically hosts over 50,000 students on its campus each academic year. Of that number, graduate and professional students typically comprise about 17% of the student body, and international students make up about 10% of the graduate student population. The institution, which prides itself on inclusive excellence, hosts international students from all over the world, historically hosting the most students from East Asia. However, in recent years, the demographics of international graduate student applicants have shifted, with increased applications from countries that have historically had lower representation at the university. For example, in the past year, the institution experienced a significant increase in applicants from South Asia and West Africa. As such, the institution is currently paying closer attention to how the institution can better serve international graduate students, particularly those from what are considered “emerging” regions.

Each interview with participants lasted 60 min. We interviewed participants twice, except for three participants, who declined to continue beyond the first interview. Interviews were transcribed verbatim, and data analysis consisted of creating narratives for each participant. Informed by Clandinin and Connelly [35], we used interview transcripts as field texts, constructed narratives as interim texts, and used final findings as research texts. Narratives were constructed based on chronology to understand participants’ sensemaking of the pandemic from a temporal perspective. We then used Dedoose, a web-based application for qualitative coding and analysis, using an in vivo coding process, which focused on participants’ spoken words that represented each participant’s experiences [36]. Our research team engaged in continuous refinement of the categories and codes throughout our development of themes and pattern codes.

For the systematic literature review component, we delimited our search for peer-reviewed journal articles to those that were published between 2000 and 2020 to capture literature about international students prior to the start of the pandemic. Our comprehensive search included five databases: Academic Search Complete, Education Resource Information Center (ERIC), Education Source and ERIC, PsycINFO, and Social Sciences Full Text. Search terms included the following: ‘immigration’ AND ‘international students’ (n = 1037); ‘national policy’ AND ‘international students’ (n = 408); ‘institutional policy’ AND ‘international students’ (n = 179); ‘mental health’ AND ‘international students’ (n = 957); and ‘academic’ AND ‘international students’ (n = 13,298). We then reviewed all sources and removed any articles and reports that were duplicates, located outside of the U.S. context, or not relevant to the overall topic. As a result, we included the following number of articles in our systematic literature review: 63 with the terms ‘immigration’ AND ‘international students’; six with the terms ‘national policy’ AND ‘international students’; seven with the terms ‘institutional policy’ AND ‘international students’; 93 with the terms ‘mental health’ AND ‘international students’; and 34 with the terms ‘academic’ AND ‘international students’.

2.2. Researcher Reflexivity and Trustworthiness

Although collaborative research allows for multiple checkpoints throughout a research study, we recognize the importance of trustworthiness in collaborative research. We first engaged in reflecting on our positionalities as individuals and how we came together as a research team. The first author identifies as an Asian American woman faculty who, as a daughter of immigrants from Hong Kong, is influenced by the ongoing effects of coloniality and racist nativism. These perspectives influence her approach to research related to international students of Color in the United States. The second author, a current graduate student, identifies as a white Queer woman who was raised and educated in the U.S. South. As a first-generation college student, her collegiate experiences have guided her understanding of the interconnectedness of race, nativism, and politics in the United States and how she has benefitted from privileges that stem from her identities. The third author identifies as a Black woman and first-generation immigrant faculty who studies the intersecting identities and marginalized experiences of students and faculty of Color and the familial and cultural influences that help combat racialization. The fourth author is a faculty member, first-generation college student, and white Queer woman who was raised and educated in the U.S. Midwest. Her social identities and educational experiences, along with her research focused on social justice and inclusion in higher education, provide a foundation for seeking to disrupt inequities in postsecondary education.

Throughout the research process, our backgrounds and perspectives allowed for analysis through multiple lenses. For example, the first and third authors identify as individuals who grew up in transnational and immigrant households, which allowed for rapport-building and engagement with participants. In addition, varied perspectives and experiences allowed the team to engage in rich meaning-making during the data analysis process. For example, the second author could provide insights to the team as a current graduate student, serving as a generational and positional link between the participants and the other research team members. Ultimately, throughout the research project, we all continuously provided feedback to each other as we engaged in discussions about participant narratives, reviewed literature, interpreted data, and collaboratively wrote drafts of the manuscript.

Beyond reflexivity, we engaged in several additional strategies that were used to ensure trustworthiness, including member checking, intercoder agreement, peer debriefing, and memoing during the data collection and analysis phase. For member checking, in which participants validated initial findings [36], we emailed each participant their completed narratives, and one participant replied with minor feedback. At the start of the analytic process, we engaged in intercoder agreement, which included “intensive group discussion… and simple group consensus” [36] (p. 37) rather than quantitative percentages of agreement. We first individually conducted in vivo coding on three narratives and then met to discuss how we each coded the narratives. In doing so, we came to an understanding of how we individually determined our codes and then came to an agreement on how to move forward in the coding process after some discussion. Additionally, peer debriefing, where we met as a team to review our initial findings [37], was started after the first-round interviews and continued throughout the entire research process; furthermore, we shared our individual reflections after the interviews and throughout the analytical process. Research team members regularly memoed after interviews and shared these insights during team debrief meetings.

3. Results and Discussion

The findings are organized by the part of our conceptual framework rooted in Robertson’s [30] conception of timescales. Within the three timescales, we identified three broad themes from participants’ narratives. The three themes included shifting immigration policies and travel uncertainty, institutional responses, and mental health stressors and personal concerns. Within each theme, we identified chronic strains related to the findings, using literature gleaned from the systematic literature review. We then highlighted exemplar participant narratives that illustrated the acute nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, thus borrowing from the other part of our conceptual framework founded in Avison and Turner’s [29] findings about life events that are both acute stressful events and chronic life strains. We also want to clarify that although the timescales are distinctly organized in the findings, the timescales do overlap, especially in the context of COVID-19. The repercussions of the events of the pandemic, particularly regarding national and institutional policies, reverberated throughout the three timescales. Thus, the timescales should be viewed as concurrent scales that cannot be fully viewed as distinct but rather as timescales that work in tandem, affecting the overall experiences of international graduate students.

3.1. Macro Timescale: Shifting Immigration Policies and Travel Uncertainty

The COVID-19 pandemic caused many acute issues to come to light for participants that were very visible within the macro timescale. The macro timescale [38] is operationalized in this study as the global dimensions affecting the pandemic and participants, namely, concerns about the U.S. response to the “global political economy” (p. 5) and concerns about worldwide travel that highlighted an “unequal process of capital accumulation” (p. 5). Concerns about U.S. policies and travel issues, mainly due to shifting policies related to visa restrictions, were issues that participants shared in the interviews. Yet, in reviewing the previous literature, concerns about immigration policies and travel concerns have been well documented over the past 20 years, indicating the chronic nature of these issues.

The period immediately following the events of 11 September 2001 included new requirements for institutional reporting in the form of the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) [39]. The establishment of SEVIS post-9/11 positioned international students and scholars as “objects of security” [40] (p. 470) who were “incorporated into the broader conflation of terrorism and immigration, and thus securitized” (p. 470). Consequently, international students have had to navigate security standards regarding immigration and mobility that have continuously shifted over the years.

National policy changed, depending on current global events, the “ideological views of the federal executive branch as well as the ebbs and flows of popular opinion” [26] (p. 46). As evidenced within the past five years, the Trump Administration enacted several immigration policies, most notably the Travel Bans, which caused additional stress for international students. For example, international students had to navigate political tensions that affected their ability to obtain a visa and subsequent feelings of panic as a result of shifting immigration policies [41]. Todoran and Peterson [42] conducted a study on international doctoral students’ reactions to the U.S. Travel Bans in 2017, and participants described the “climate as stressful, confusing, and hostile” (p. 440). International doctoral students were concerned about their ability to enter the United States, so many participants changed their travel plans to avoid any sudden changes to immigration policies [42]. Even when students were able to travel, the fear of being viewed with suspicion in airports caused anxiety, as found by Khoshneviss [43]. In that study, Iranian students were placed in a liminal space of in-betweeness in airports as travelers to their college campuses, bringing significant anxiety to the students [43]. As evidenced by previous studies, international students must continuously navigate shifting national priorities and policies.

The COVID-19 pandemic was also a critical moment in time for international students and scholars, as evidenced in the current study. Nine participants expressed concerns about the U.S. national response to the pandemic, including public health practices and travel concerns. For example, Emily, a doctoral student from East Asia, told her professor about the potential for a pandemic as she expressed concern about traveling to New York for a conference. However, her professor did not share her concerns. Emily explained, “After that conference, so only two weeks later, I remember, so in New York was totally locked down. And they began to know that the pandemic was so serious and that we should take it seriously”. In addition, because of travel restrictions, Emily could not go back home to her hometown to see her family, although she understood that this was an issue for many people in the world with the global pandemic.

Similarly, Jessica, a master’s student from South America, recalled that COVID-19 did not seem as bad in her home country at the beginning of the pandemic. However, “then cases that started increasing really bad and… At some point I was like, I think I have to just go back at least for one semester. For this semester I was thinking maybe going back because of the whole situation with Trump and then the COVID-19, my family in another country and I was feeling kind of isolated as well”. Thus, both Emily and Jessica expressed confusion about whether or not to travel home at the beginning of the pandemic.

Beyond personal decisions about travel, many participants shared feelings of aggravation when the SEVIS policies were updated in July 2020, forbidding international students from taking fully online classes. For example, Harry Potter, a doctoral student from South Asia, shared that the uncertainty of how his country was being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the travel ban in his home country negatively affected his outlook on life. He explained,

So I cannot just, it is also not safe for me to travel. And if I really want to travel, there is, I mean, there all restriction. And then there is, if I can come back, if I can go there so typically, in any summer, you can go home and you can come back on the fall, but when I saw I was doing a lot of changes so you have this tension that if I go back, and can I come back on the fall? And if I cannot come back on the fall, should my professor be still hiring me? Or can I continue my degree from my home country? So those are all of the… Like the things are very messy at this point.

As indicated by Harry Potter’s narrative, international students had to navigate the unknown related to immigration policies during the pandemic, which was reminiscent of studies by Marbang et al. [41] and Todoran and Peterson [42]. Similar to international students during the Travel Bans in 2017 [42], several participants were concerned about their ability to travel back and forth to and within the United States, which necessitated travel changes. Participants’ narratives illuminate how the pandemic served as an acute issue that highlighted the chronic strains that “represented unresolved, continuing difficulties” [29] (p. 261), which, within the macro timescale, included continuously shifting immigration policies that led to uncertainty for international graduate students.

3.2. Meso Timescale: Institutional Policies, Practices, and Responses

The meso timescale is heavily structured by the timescales of different governance systems within host states [30] and is inclusive of not only “national and supranational systems of governance, but also brokers, agents, recruiters, and other facilitators of mobility” (p. 5). In this study, we operationalize the meso timescale at the institutional level, exploring institutional policies, practices, and responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. While international students have historically contended with intercultural and interpersonal matters [7], it is the structural and institutional policies that often prove difficult to navigate. Institutional responses to the acute events of the pandemic highlighted the latent institutional and academic issues experienced by international graduate students; yet, the literature reveals these issues as perennial.

International graduate students experience various academic difficulties as they adjust to a new country and a new educational system. Such challenges include language and communication barriers [44], time management [45], challenges arising for international graduate students in the United States encompassing issues related to instructional technology and distance education [42,46], and self-imposed pressure to succeed academically to reach personal and career goals [47]. In response to such academic difficulties, institutions of higher education employ several strategies to mitigate these challenges. For example, many U.S. institutions require a language assessment for graduate students serving in a teaching capacity [39]. Referrals to resources such as international student services and writing centers [44] are intended to provide academic and non-academic support for international students [48]. Thus, institutions seek to minimize the difficulties that are unique to international graduate students during their time in the United States.

The COVID-19 pandemic presented a challenge for institutions of higher education across the United States. As evidenced by several of our participants, navigating the quarantine associated with the closure of higher education institutions and other aspects of life in the United States was especially difficult. Joy, from East Asia, did not remember much about her university’s reaction to the pandemic other than receiving an email from the university’s president urging students to stay at home instead of returning to the campus. Ann, a graduate student from Eastern Europe, expressed frustrations that she had with the university’s response to the pandemic, stating, “I saw all the [other] universities went hundred percent virtual, but we still had people in our campus, in our building going to classes with COVID positive. Then we still had classes in person, face to face”. While she took precautions such as sanitizing her office space, she was dismayed that the university did not do more to better enforce safety protocols as she was warned to stay away from her academic building because “it’s full of COVID positives”.

The subsequent institutional shifts to virtual classes and, for some participants, teaching online classes, brought with them various challenges relating to the decision to stay or return home, housing situations, and adjusting to a “new normal” that included virtual classes and quarantine. The pandemic exacerbated existing life stressors that international graduate students experience, such as adapting and adjusting to a new country away from their families as well as facing academic challenges. For instance, Joy’s experience with the lack of engagement with professors through asynchronized class lectures influenced her perception that online classes are not as effective as those conducted in person. Joy’s sentiment was shared among several other participants who felt that they were essentially teaching themselves the class materials rather than their professors. While students adjusted to taking classes virtually, they felt overwhelmed by challenges created by the pandemic, such as conducting experiments in STEM disciplines through online platforms.

Eams, from South Asia, recalled that faculty, staff, and students in his department felt anxious during this time, sharing, “that was an anxious period because we were not ready to embrace the online version of our teaching”. Figuring out how to turn a statistics class into a virtual class was not an easy feat, but Eams found help through his coordinators and faculty. These student experiences highlight how the pandemic created additional academic challenges for international graduate students, many of whom were taking online classes for the first time in their academic journeys. The discomfort and anxiety that participants experienced echoed the difficulties that Tan [38] faced. While most favored in-person experiences, they also acknowledged the impossibilities of that reality in the context of the global pandemic around them.

Institutional re-opening policies and practices created a stark shift in the student experience as the precautions and protocols were met with mixed feelings. On the one hand, the pandemic drastically reduced academic and social experiences. Consequently, students craved personal interactions with their classmates and professors. On the other hand, the rush to re-open campuses and “return to normal” forced students to prioritize their health or academics. Ana, from South Asia, returned to campus unmotivated, unfocused, and struggling with time management. Ana’s experiences with time management during the pandemic are similar to the findings that Alazzi and Chiodo [45] obtained in their study. Similarly, RJ, a doctoral student from South Asia, was concerned about students’ willingness to follow the university’s COVID-19 precautions, including wearing face masks and social distancing, and ultimately volunteered to make face shields. He explained that even in creating these face masks, he and the rest of the team had to remain cautious due to how easily COVID-19 could spread from one person to another. RJ shared, “I want everyone to follow the health requirements to avoid the contamination so that we can go back to our normal life”. As indicated by participants’ narratives, the pandemic highlighted the academic strains and university agents or government facilitators used to perpetuate international student im/mobility. The meso timescale included continuously shifting responses at the institutional, college, department, and programmatic levels of the education enterprise that led to insecurity, seclusion, and anxiousness for international graduate students.

3.3. Micro Timescale: Mental Health Stressors and Personal Concerns

The micro timescale is adherent to the concept of the life course, such as the series of stages and transitions in life that are culturally and institutionally framed from birth to death [49]. The micro temporalities of family and social life are intimately affected by macro and meso timescales; for example, plans to go back home are dependent on macro political circumstances [30]. The micro timescale is operationalized in this study at the individual level, which affects international graduate students through concerns about academic progress, family, travel, and mental health. International students’ family and social life in the United States can be intimately affected by macro timescales related to political circumstances and institutional policies. Yet, the literature reveals that their personal experiences of acute issues were influenced by family support and how they progressed through their academic studies when they faced the chronic events of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As newcomers, international students are more likely to experience adjustment and mental health challenges in their host countries, where establishing support networks and resources can be difficult [50]. Previous literature has indicated that international graduate students not only face many transitional challenges when traveling from their home country to the United States, but additional challenges in adjusting to a new language, culture, and educational system and tackling immigration and financial difficulties [30,44,51,52]. Additionally, international graduate students experience loneliness and homesickness while facing challenges during their adjustment to the United States. Brutt-Griffler et al. [53] reported that doctoral students from Saudi Arabia found it difficult to be away from their families while facing extensive academic challenges with feeling academically unprepared for the rigor of their doctoral programs. Chennamsetti [54] found that participants also reported feeling anxious, homesick, and lonely when living in a new country away from their families.

Misra et al.’s [55] study found that stressors associated with life events can cause students to become concerned about their mental health. Eleven participants expressed feeling lonely and homesick during the quarantine. For example, Eams felt lonely during quarantine due to it being “not a very desirable setup” and stated that it was “handicapping in some situations”. Eams stated,

I used to clean stuff and wash my hands and other things over and over again. And due to these pandemic situations, those habits magnified tenfold. So actually, I made my hands rough cleaning them over and over again… But you get through it like everyone else, every other people… And I’m not okay, but I think it’s all right.

Similarly, other participants also shared that quarantine elicited feelings of loneliness. Joy felt that her emotional and mental health was good during the first six weeks of the pandemic. After several months of quarantine, she began to feel the stress of isolation after “being at home so much and for so long started to take a toll”. Evergreen, a graduate student from Southeast Asia, stated that the emptiness of campus, with so many people staying at home, showed that “physically, we are getting further, but I hope in mentally, we’re trying to like, clinging on each other, to connect more, from inside”. She also shared that the distance from others made her sad because “we’re social people. I want to talk to with people. I want to see people smile”. C, a doctoral student from East Asia, shared that her mother was worried about her physical health at the beginning of the pandemic. Yet, her mother’s concern shifted to concerns of mental wellness. According to C, “she’s not as worried” about contracting COVID-19 “because we have been staying at home and we are not doing anything harmful to ourselves. So, she’s not as worried… she’s worried about my mental health probably more than my physical health”.

Another stressor for international students was concern about their family in their home country and challenges with maintaining contact [56]. Several participants also had to manage the stress of worrying about family and friends back home. For example, Gupta, from South Asia, described his concerns for his family as he heard about the news of COVID-19 back home, including the passing of several friends and former colleagues. Similarly, Sam, a doctoral student from South Asia, lost several relatives back home due to COVID-19, which brought difficulties because of the tight-knit nature of her family. Consequently, Sam was very cautious in her interactions with others and practiced safety protocols, yet still felt the mental toll of the pandemic. Jessica, a graduate student from South America, shared that because her family was in another country, she felt isolated during the pandemic.

Participants shared their concerns about mental health stressors that affected them on a personal level. Many participants expressed concerns about issues related to their transnational lives, such as transportation, socialization, and temporary immigration status. Yet, mental health concerns were heightened at this time due to the interconnectivity of mental health and the sense of uncertainty and concern during the pandemic that participants faced. For example, Gupta talked about the mental pressure and stress he experienced due to uncertainties he faced, not only with the pandemic in general but also with his family back in his home country. Initially, he was planning to go home in the summer of 2020, but the pandemic forced him to postpone those plans and cancel his plane ticket.

Ana shared her feelings of isolation during the pandemic. She explained,

You can’t go outside but you’re as close to outside as you can get. You can’t talk to people in person but you can connect with them through your phone… It kind of makes me feel it’s some form of trying to have as much of a normal as possible, but to me it looks sad. It’s not what I want to be in the situation, which none of us do.

Although participants experienced difficulties, they found that family, roommates, and friends—even long distance—were valuable. Joy found value in spending time with her roommates through working out and cooking dinner as ways to reduce stress from the pandemic. Eams also made sure that he had regular video calls with family and friends. The challenges of being far away from their home countries and isolated from family and friends painted a picture of how the pandemic negatively influenced their personal lives and academic studies in the United States. The micro timescale continuously shaped the international students’ perceptions of COVID-19, indicating the acute and chronic issues of family and social life triggered by the uncertainty of micro temporalities for international students in the United States.

3.4. Implications for Practice and Policy

The participant narratives illuminate how the COVID-19 pandemic was an acute issue that brought many feelings of insecurity, anxiety, and stress for international graduate students. There is no question that the pandemic was a difficult time for many in U.S. higher education. However, as shared by the participants, the pandemic elicited additional stressors for international graduate students, particularly related to national priorities, institutional practices, and personal concerns. In this section, we provide some suggestions for practice and policy, organized according to the timescales.

Within the macro timescale, participants shared their concerns regarding travel restrictions and immigration policy changes. As illustrated by findings from the previous literature, the pandemic only illuminated the chronic issues facing international graduate students, particularly related to changing national policies that restrict/enable students to travel. We suggest that national policymakers take into consideration the needs of international graduate students when announcing new and adjusted policies. However, we recognize that this recommendation to national policymakers is unlikely to happen; thus, we suggest that institutions take a more active role in translating and clarifying the many shifting immigration policies. Higher education institutions must stay diligent in paying attention to national changes and communicate regularly with international students. More importantly, institutions must take into consideration how national policies may affect graduate students’ degree progress as well as how their dependents, many of whom may have come to the United States with them, are affected by policies and laws. Additionally, faculty and supervisors must be aware of immigration changes and demonstrate support for their students. This is particularly important for graduate students, who often associate more closely with their departments and programs.

The meso timescale illuminates the ways in which participants’ academic and personal challenges were exacerbated by the pandemic with having reliable internet access for virtual classes and programming. We recommend that institutions ensure that international graduate students have reliable internet access for coursework and events as many international graduate students live off-campus. Likewise, we suggest that campus offices like International Student Services, in collaboration with other offices, consider hosting more virtual and hybrid events and resources. For example, a virtual orientation that allows students to learn more about navigating policies such as travel issues/bans or informational sessions geared towards moving to the United States with family members and dependents could benefit international graduate students’ needs as well as busy schedules.

The pandemic highlighted how international graduate students must navigate challenging situations due to a plethora of policy changes at institutional and governmental levels, like the SEVIS update in July 2020. Therefore, we recommend that institutions coordinate regular town hall gatherings to fulfill two purposes: (1) provide an avenue for international graduate students to not only learn of the full extent of such policies but also discuss policy changes and voice their concerns and (2) communicate with the rest of the campus community about how these changes affect international students and how campus community members can better support them. Additionally, institutions should consider having international student representation in their student governmental bodies. In doing so, this will allow international graduate students to be a part of decision-making processes that impact their academic and personal experiences in higher education institutions in the United States.

Regarding the micro timescale, there is no question that the COVID-19 pandemic elicited mental health concerns for all college students, regardless of national origin or academic status. Yet, international graduate students require additional support and consideration, especially because they must navigate the daily stressors of graduate education in addition to more global concerns. Thus, more mental health support is needed for international graduate students. Institutions should seek counselors who are familiar with the unique needs of international graduate students regarding visa policies, employment restrictions, and familial responsibilities. Ideally, multilingual counselors should be on all college campuses as a way to allow international graduate students to comfortably discuss their experiences in their own language.

As stated previously, the findings demonstrated that the timescales had significant overlap, likely due to the compressed timing and global pressures during the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, global, institutional, and personal effects of the pandemic were intertwined, requiring institutional leaders to holistically support international graduate students. For example, we suggest for the meso timescale that institutions consider virtual orientations for new incoming students that address moving to the United States, with a particular emphasis on potential travel issues. Yet, facilitators must take into consideration how these perceived challenges are communicated and ensure that, ultimately, students’ mental, emotional, and physical well-being is the primary focus of any programmatic interventions, as indicated within the micro timescale. As such, educators who work with international graduate students must always take into consideration how the intersections of global, national, institutional, and personal priorities work concurrently and affect students’ overall transition and success in the United States.

3.5. Limitations and Future Directions for Research

We identified several limitations of our study, which serve as foundations for future directions of research. First, our study centered around one acute, critical incident (i.e., the COVID-19 pandemic). Although the world has slowly emerged from the pandemic, the reality is that other health viruses will likely affect the world in the future. Thus, although this study was centered around one moment in time, the findings from this study can inform policies and practices that better serve international graduate students. Furthermore, this research would have benefited from a longitudinal study that could track students over the course of multiple years. We recommend that scholars consider engaging further with participants beyond one moment in time for a research study. Furthermore, future studies can explore this topic from the perspectives of students from multiple institutions to allow for a breadth of contexts.

Another limitation is that our study focused on reflections from the start of the pandemic; yet, the pandemic has continued for multiple years. Our study could be strengthened by multiple touchpoints with participants, particularly in light of multiple variants. We suggest that future studies engage deeper with the nuances of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly regarding variants that affected different countries at different times. For example, the Delta variant affected South Asia more than other regions of the world, so scholars could explore how this particular variant affected international graduate students from South Asia.

Finally, we did not engage deeply with our participants about any caregiving or familial responsibilities that they may have had. International graduate students often have additional stressors, such as spouses, partners, and children who move with them to the United States. Understanding the perspectives of spouses, partners, and children would provide a richness to the understanding of the lives of international graduate students and provide insights for institutions to better support underserved international graduate student families.

4. Conclusions

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, international students have been facing various challenges, particularly international graduate students. The COVID-19 pandemic affected their im/mobilities during their studies in the United States. Based on Avison and Turner’s [29] chronic strains and Robertson’s [30] conception of timescales, this study unfolded participants’ narratives from three timescales: the macro timescale of immigration policies and travel uncertainty, the meso timescale of institutional responses, and the micro timescale of personal mental health concerns. The three timescales illustrated the COVID-19 pandemic as an acute stressful event that also impacted chronic life strains like mental health issues for international graduate students. This study illuminates suggestions for institutions and policymakers, including clarifying policies, better communicating with international graduate students, and providing tailored counseling support. These suggestions are significant for improving international graduate students’ well-being in the face of any acute issues that may arise in the future.