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Mario Alvarado

Professor McCann

English 1302. 203

3 February 2022

More Than Inconvenienced: The Unique Needs of U.S. College Students During the COVID-19

Pandemic- Week 2

Writing about issues is everywhere, what’s rare is writing that has the suggestions to

combat these issues. This is what makes “More Than Inconvenienced: The Unique Needs of U.S.

College Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic” stand out from millions of other peer-

reviewed COVID-19 articles. In this article, Alyssa Lederer et al. discuss the challenges faced by

institutions and their students as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how these challenges

can be overcome.

“More Than Inconvenienced: The Unique Needs of U.S. College Students During the

COVID-19 Pandemic” is a peer-reviewed article published in Health Education & Behavior. The

reason that this article can be assumed to be peer-reviewed is that if the Health Education &

Behavior website is visited, under the “Journal Description” tab, it reads “Health Education &

Behavior (HE&B) is a peer-reviewed, bimonthly journal…” (SAGE Journals). Though a clear

thesis is often hard to maintain in a peer-reviewed article, Lederer et al. manage to do so.

Specifically, the thesis of Lederer et al. is that COVID-19 has presented many

insecurities and challenges to students, and their institutions. However, there are things that

institutions can do to help their students mitigate these obstacles (1). As evidence to support their

thesis, Lederer et al. quote other sources. For example, Lederer et al. mention that “’ in 2019,

almost a quarter of college students had been diagnosed or treated for anxiety or depression in
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the previous 12 months’” (2). To answer their research questions Lederer et al. “manage their

two long-standing college health surveys” which provide them info, and read other researchers’

work who show results proving their thesis (1). For example, Lederer et al. detail how students

who relied on meal plans at their universities, lost access to these commodities since most

universities closed down during the COVID-19 pandemic (2). The reason that Lederer et al.

specifically detail how it was that students were affected from a university resource, is to nudge

at universities to make an effort to help students who are facing challenges as a result of the

COVID-19 pandemic.

The target audience of Lederer et al. is institutions of higher education. This is evident

from the Abstract, which mentions “We provide several recommendations for institutions for

institutions of higher education to mitigate these obstacles, including engaging in data-driven

decision making…” (1). The entire article provides ways for universities to combat the

challenges that came with the COVID-19 pandemic.

All in all, Lederer et al. provide good suggestions for institutions to follow in order to

recuperate from the devastating COVID-19 pandemic. As Albert Szent-Gyorgi once said,

“Research is to see what everybody else has seen and to think what nobody else has thought”. In

addition to thinking what nobody else has thought, Lederer et al. share suggestions nobody else

would’ve thought of.

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Works Cited

Lederer, Alyssa M., et al. “More Than Inconvenienced: The Unique Needs of U.S. College

Students During the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Health Education & Behavior, vol.48, no.1,

Feb. 2021. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1090198120969372. Accessed 31 January 2022.

SAGE Journals. “Journal Description.” https://journals.sagepub.com/description/HEB. Accessed

31 January 2022.