The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the level of stress of the Vietnamese college

students studying in the U.S.A.: A review of scholarly and non-scholarly sources

Truong Hoang Binh Son

Advisor: Dr. Kinho Chan

December 14th, 2020

 I. Introduction

COVID-19 pandemic affects tremendously all people around the world and forces us to adapt

to the ‘new normal’ to control the transmission with online studying, working from home,

lockdown, quarantine, limited international flights, etc. While Vietnam relatively succeeds in

controlling the transmission of COVID-19 and most Vietnamese get used to that ‘new

normal’ getting back to their ordinary life, there are Vietnamese who live in foreign countries,

especially high risk of COVID-19 ones, still struggle with drastic changes and suffer from

distress. This paper focuses on the Vietnamese college-age students studying in the US as

they are the group that very vulnerable to distress in the current time - depending on family’s

finance, instability for those first living far from home in a country with the most COVID-19

cases in the world (December 2020) (Google News, n.d.), and especially the recently

proposed rule by the Trump administration forcing international student without studying

offline must leave the US, which triggers a huge wave of anger among them (Shoichet &

Sands, 2020).

This paper examines “How does COVID-19 pandemic affect the level of stress among

Vietnamese college students studying in the US?” through both non-scholarly articles and

scholarly resources, and gives a vice-versa perspective from the international college students

living in Vietnam during the outbreak of COVID-19.

II. Non-scholarly articles

“COVID-19 gives overseas Vietnamese students hard time” (Thanh Hang & Duong Tam,

2020) is an article about the experience of overseas Vietnamese students amid the COVID-19

pandemic including a Vietnamese college student in the US whose name Minh, a senior at

Vanderbilt University in Nashville. She had been worried about both her physical and mental

health since her friends and the locals did not follow the transmission and protective

measures in public spaces even though there were confirmed cases in her university. Minh
was lingering between staying there without beloved ones when she got sick and going back

to Vietnam studying online at 3-4 a.m, and facing the threat of losing her job, visa, and

missing the graduation ceremony. Minh finally chose to go back home as she prioritized her

health - both mentally and physically.

“Returning students face cold embrace amid COVID-19 suspicions at home” (Long Nguyen,

2020) is an article about the distress that overseas Vietnamese students had to face which

prevent them from moving back to Vietnam: racism from the Vietnamese, worrying of

putting more burden on the Vietnamese quarantine system and the low-quality 14-day

quarantine facilities. Even though this article does not include data from Vietnamese

college-age students in the US, it does present data from Vietnamese college-age students in

other high COVID-19 confirmed cases countries (UK, Germany) which predicts some similar

data to our research question.

III. Scholarly resource

“A qualitative study on mental distress of Vietnamese students in the U.S.A. in the

COVID-19 era” (Ngoc Cindy Pham & Juehui Richard Shi, n.d.) is a research article that aims

to explore a variety of root causes that lead to mental health distress of international students

when living far from home and experiencing isolation amid the COVID-19 outbreak. The

research’s method is in-depth interviews with 20 Vietnamese students studying in 6 different

colleges in NYC. The interviews were conducted online due to social distancing, in

Vietnamese (due to the participants’ preference) and in group (3 to 5) or individual. After the

interviews were transcribed and translated into English, the researchers utilized the narrative

textual analysis technique through listening, observing recorded videos, interpreting their

meaning, and setting an agreement upon the interview transcripts’ interpretation. The

interviews asked questions of ‘what’ and ‘how’ to the participants to collect the variety of

sources causing mental distress and the ways participants resolved it. The findings of the
research article show eight majors cause lead to mental distress among these students: risky

living conditions, school interruption, work interruption, limited access to healthcare services,

inability to go back to Vietnam, isolation from public spaces and facilities, unstable future

after graduation and racism, cultural factors.

IV. Comparison

As the non-scholarly articles and the scholarly resources are both from reliable sources with

the scientific procedure of collecting data, they are very similar in terms of the students’ high

level of stress and the causes that lead to those students’ distress, except for some different

causes due to the time conducting these articles. Both the scholarly and non-scholarly shows

the findings of the causes of that distress: risky living conditions (locals did not take

COVID-19 cautions seriously), school interruption (online studying), limited access to

healthcare services (high hospitalization cost), inability to go back to Vietnam (flights

limitation, worrying of infection in airports), unstable future after graduation and racism

(losing jobs, internship; being discriminated when wearing masks in public). The

non-scholarly articles add more about the fear that prevents students from going back to

Vietnam and also the racism from the Vietnamese compared to the scholarly articles as the

non-scholarly article is written 2-3 weeks later than the scholarly one when the discrimination

towards overseas students going back to Vietnam gradually appeared. As written weeks later

when the Vietnamese quarantines system was exposed to heavy loads and was criticized to

have low-quality facilities, more Vietnamese international students shared in the

non-scholarly article that they chose to stay to not put more pressure on this quarantine

system.

V. Reflection

COVID-19 pandemic put these Vietnamese college students in so many life changes: those

first time living far from home have to adapt to culture shocks and new living conditions now
living in such an unconventional and uncertain situation amid the pandemic. The drastic

changes of their normal life routine according to the Social Readjustment Rating Scale

(SRRS) (Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS), n.d.) create much anxiety and distress

towards these students. Some of the stressors to these students are among the most stressful

life events according to this scale including ‘Personal injury or illness’, ‘Change in financial

state’, ‘Change in living condition’, ‘Change in schools’ and ‘Change in social activity’.

To have an interesting vice-versa perspective from the international students currently

studying in Vietnam amid the pandemic, we look at a non-scholarly article named “Life of an

international student in Vietnam during the pandemic” (HCMUT, 2020) with interviews from

HCMUT international students. Most of them considered Vietnam as one of the safest

countries during the pandemic and even though there were inconveniences at the beginning

such as missing home, online studying, and lockdown of public spaces, they still believed it

was the right choice to live here instead of going back to their home countries which were

currently at higher risk of COVID-19 infection than Vietnam and they could also get infected

at the airport.

VI. Bibliography

Google News. (n.d.). Coronavirus (COVID-19).

https://news.google.com/covid19/map?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

HCMUT. (2020, May 6). Life of an international student in Vietnam during the pandemic.

Long Nguyen. (2020, April 8). Returning students face cold embrace amid Covid-19

suspicions at home. Vnexpress International.

Ngoc Cindy Pham, & Juehui Richard Shi. (n.d.). A qualitative study on mental distress of

Vietnamese students in the U.S.A. in the Covid-19 era. Asia-Pacific Journal of Health

Management.
Shoichet, C., & Sands, G. (2020, September 24). Trump administration takes aim at

international students again. CNN politics.

Social Readjustment Rating Scale (SRRS). (n.d.).

https://www.brandeis.edu/roybal/docs/Social%20Readjustment%20rating%20scale_

Website.pdf

Thanh Hang, & Duong Tam. (2020, March 21). Covid-19 gives overseas Vietnamese students

hard time. Vnexpress International.