Alejandra Garcia Duran, an international student from Colombia who studies at ADA University with the program of Master of Public Administration shares her main challenges about the coronavirus and a student life in quarantine days.    1. When and how did you receive the news about coronavirus? What was your first reaction? First time I heard about the coronavirus was in January when my mother wrote to me from Colombia concerned because of this virus that was spreading from China and she was just very worried. In the beginning, I was not concerned at all I thought it was just something that was going to stay in China. I really got anxious by February.   2. Was it your decision to stay in Azerbaijan during the pandemic time or it was too late to leave the country? (if yes, why?) When I decided to leave the country it was too late and flights to Colombia were closed because the government decided to stop receiving any international flights. Also flying to Colombia will definitely mean having a stopover in a couple of airports and that represents a risk; if I stopped in different airports it was going to be very likely that I would’ve gotten the virus. I even tried to go to Georgia but flights were cancelled. In the end, I think it was good that I stayed.   3. Your life in Azerbaijan during the pandemic. During the quarantine, I’ve been basically staying at home and going out for groceries and walks very late at night to avoid the people in general. It has been very important to have classes and to have assignments because those activities allowed me to have some kind of routine that kept me busy during the long hours of being by myself in the apartment. In general, I have felt calmed and seeing friends -other international students- at the building was very encouraging and important to keep ourselves in the company and talk about the situation and decompress.   4. Does your university supply you with online classes? Do you attend the online classes? What are the advantages and disadvantages of online classes? Yes, ADA quickly implemented the online classes, so after Novruz I started attending online classes three times a week. I always try to attend, but since the schedules at home changed a little bit as you would go to bed later and then wake up later, the time was perceived completely different and sometimes I would not make it to the class. But the good thing about the online classes is that those are always recorded so we can re-watch them or just if we missed some part we can just watch the whole class again and catch up easily with all the topics. A disadvantage of online classes is that sometimes the discussions we would have in the classroom are not so easy to develop in the online class because of the connection or the sound problems or just because we are not facing each other it becomes harder to exchange ideas.   5. Coronavirus: the pros and cons of keeping universities closed. I believe that for all of us - the students - going to the University is a very important part of the process. Besides, by being an international student and coming to Azerbaijan we expected to share time with local people learn from their culture and when we are not spending time with classmates or our local teachers, we are not gaining any the cultural knowledge or exchange that was the part of the initial idea. With the coronavirus, I guess the obvious pros is that closing the campus the higher education institutions’ community is safe and that the universities do not become a focus of virus spreading; education institutions just like any other place where people gather simply had to be close to stop the virus.   6. How do you spend your time now? Has anything changed in your daily routine? Hobbies before? At the beginning of the quarantine, I was reading the news more often than I normally do. I was just searching on the web for all kind of information about the virus and checking daily updates on the coronavirus.  Also, I was talking to my family and friends in my country more often than I normally do because everybody wanted to check on me all the time. After everything was much clearer and I had no option but to stay, I relaxed a bit, and besides the necessary studying, I would watch series and movies. The routine changed dramatically because it would be harder to go to sleep due to the long time spent at home. So, most of the time I would be sleeping during the day and staying up all night. One very good thing is that the university apartments are very comfortable and spacious, we have windows and we have space to walk inside so I would try to exercise at home walking around or with YouTube videos.   7. Did you try to learn something new or discover your new skills during a lockdown? (yoga, studying new languages...) Not really just had more time to try to paint again and went back to writing. Without the quarantine, I would spend most of the time with friends.   8. What lesson have you learned from this pandemic? Please express the advantages and disadvantages of this situation In my personal experience what I have learned from this pandemic is that I can definitely spend more time at home by myself feeling fine and comfortable, even to understand better the moments of anxiety, sadness or depression; also I have realized that we can adapt to other ways of learning. But again, my desire to study abroad to get to know more about the culture of Azerbaijan could not happen if I just stayed in the apartment without talking to people or going to restaurants, cafes and experiencing the culture.   9. Comparison of the lockdown in home and host countries. I am from Bogotá and the biggest difference, I guess for what I read in the news and what my family have told me is that the numbers of cases in Colombia - in Bogotá - are higher than the numbers in Baku because Bogota is a bigger city and the majority of the population depend on their daily work so a lot of people in my city need to go outside and work to make a living, so it was harder for the authorities to make the people stay at home than what I saw here in Baku. Also, some of the measures in Colombia were stricter than here in Azerbaijan, for example, my family was not able to go out more than four hours per week but here in Azerbaijan, we were able to go out three hours per day if we send the message to get the authorization. I never felt that people were panicking here in Azerbaijan in tone way they showed in the news from countries in Europe. Here supermarkets were always stocked there was never any panic of the population going to the stores to get a lot of food and toilet paper.   10. Your communication circle during the quarantine. In the quarantine I reached most of my friends more than I usually do, I tried to text friends from all over the world just to know how they were spending their quarantine days and I talked more often to my family than I normally do.  

The ranking of the best universities in the world has been announced by the RUR (Round University Ranking). The ranking includes 829 higher education institutions from 85 countries. The top ten leading universities have remained virtually unchanged since 2010, when the RUR rating was available. Azerbaijan is represented in the overall ranking by 3 universities - Baku State University (702nd place), Azerbaijan University of Architecture and Construction (760th place) and Azerbaijan State University of Economics (807th place). In the international RUR ranking based on scientific data of Clarivate Analytics, universities are evaluated on 20 parameters grouped in four areas: quality of education (40% of the evaluation of higher education institution), quality of research (40%), level of internationalization (10% of university assessment), level of financial sustainability (10%).  In addition to the general rating, the RUR rating includes 6 ratings in 30 subjects: humanities, life sciences, medical sciences, natural sciences, social sciences, technical sciences. (https://roundranking.com/ranking/world-university-rankings.html#world-2020)  

Janeth Carolina, an international student from Colombia who studies foundation program with the Grant holder of Azerbaijan Government Scholarship at Azerbaijan University of Languages, shares her main challenges about the COVID-19 and describes how quarantine period affects his student life. 1.  When and how did you receive the news about coronavirus? What was your first reaction? I heard about it on the news. In the beginning, I didn't think it would get so out of hand. I thought it would be more manageable than it has proven to be.   2. Was it your decision to stay in Azerbaijan during the pandemic time or it was too late you leave the country? (if yes, why?) I decided to stay in Azerbaijan. I thought there was no escaping this virus and it would probably be worse back home since the population is way bigger. I was also confident that the government here would aid us if needed (since we are on a state-funded scholarship program).   3. Your life in Azerbaijan during the pandemic. My life has been pretty much staying at home, attending online classes and going out only to get groceries.   4. Does your university supply you with online classes? Do you attend the online classes? What are the advantages and disadvantages of online classes? Yes, the university has provided online classes throughout the quarantine. They are quite easy to manage, I think since we are a small group.   The obvious advantage would be the time saved from not having to go to university. However, thinking about it in the case of this quarantine, online classes have proven to be a breath of fresh air for many students. Since it has given us a daily purpose when there is literally no escape from home. It has enabled us to keep in touch with classmates and teachers, which in turn provides us with a certain type of comfort that we are not alone and that things will go back to normal at some point. I am a firm believer in face to face education. I think that online classes are not for everybody and that most students cannot get any meaningful learning from them. Since now all of us take the lessons from our homes, it is easier to find distractions, to feel less energy and to not focus very well during lessons. We need to be disciplined and focused when we are taking these online classes. Unfortunately, this is not easy to do. In this type of education, it is also hard to carry out debates and discussions (especially when you have a large group). Another issue is that we are totally dependent on the internet connection, which is not always good.   5. Coronavirus: the pros and cons of keeping universities closed. The pros of keeping universities closed. As I stated in my previous answer, I do not think most people get meaningful learning from online classes, since the environment does not cooperate to keep the mind focused on studying. Students would benefit from the opening of the universities. They will be able to cramp up some review time and finish their exams.   However, the current situation will not allow us to do this in the near future. If we take the example of France, which opened their schools last week, we can see that this will inevitably lead to new cases of the virus. It would be practically impossible for the social distance in the universities and even in the metro and buses. I think a lot of the progress we see with the virus now, which was gained with the quarantine, could be undone if the government opens the schools too soon.   6. How do you spend your time now? Has anything changed in your daily routine? Hobbies before and during COVID-19 I mostly spend my time attending the online classes, reading, watching movies and talking to my family and friends on the phone. The most significant change in my routine is that I am not walking or exercising too much and that I am talking to my friends more.   7. Did you try to learn something new or discover your new skills during a lockdown? (yoga, studying new languages...) Not necessarily new hobbies, but I have returned to meditating almost daily (which I hadn’t done for quite a while), and I have tried to practice my Portuguese more.   8. What lesson have you learned from this pandemic? Please express the advantages and disadvantages of this situation The only advantage I can think of is that we have more time for self-reflection now, which is not necessarily good for everyone. We have more time to invest in our hobbies too.   However, I do not think this compensates for all the issues that have come from this pandemic. Just to give a few examples: all the livelihoods that have been utterly destroyed, all the countries which economies have fallen drastically, all the people that got stuck in some foreign country and unable to get home. Not to mention all the distrust and fear this virus has caused. All the mental health issues that will be derived from all of the above. I mean, I am also quite worried about the repercussions it will have for many years to come.   9. Comparison of the lockdown in home and host countries. I am from Colombia, in South America. The population in Colombia is five times the population in Azerbaijan, so obviously we have more cases of the virus. However, I think both governments have taken very similar precautions to try to slow the spread of the virus. I would say currently, the situation is quite similar in both places.   10. Your communication circle during the quarantine. I talk to my classmates and teachers every day, as well as my mother. And I keep in touch frequently with friends and my sister and father.   

Musa K Ceesay, an international student from the Republic of Gambia who is Grant holder of Azerbaijan Government Scholarship and studies bachelor at Baku Slavic University with the major of international relations shares his main challenges about the coronavirus and describes his student life in quarantine days. 1.  When and how did you receive the news about coronavirus? What was your first reaction? I first received the Coronavirus news in late February 2020. I got the information from our University class WhatsApp platform. My first reaction to the news wasn’t distressed because I wasn’t panic. 2. Was it your decision to stay in Azerbaijan during the pandemic time or it was too late you leave the country? (if yes, why?) It wasn’t my decision to neither stay in Azerbaijan nor should I leave for my country because the signed agreement was to visit my country once, every year. However, no one had ever thought of such pandemic would have emerged; therefore, my stay in Azerbaijan in this period is unconditional. 3. Your life in Azerbaijan during the pandemic. To be frank enough, my life in Azerbaijan during the pandemic wasn’t bad because I am not a good fan of going out regularly even back home. I like staying indoors when I have nothing important to do outside. 4. Does your university supply you with online classes? Do you attend the online classes? What are the advantages and disadvantages of online classes? Yes, my university was and still providing me with very active online classes. Yes, I attended almost every class provided for us. The advantages of online classes are as follows; 1. Accessibility to make research on a particular topic or assignment at any given time. 2. It’s easy for me to make an omission and addition to my research work whenever presentations are ongoing. 3. It saves my energy to and from the University. 4. I do have an absolute relaxation before and after the lessons. The disadvantages of online classes are as follows; 1. The number of network problems. 2. My inability to understand the complete explanations of Russian language to the expectation. 3. Unarranged time schedules for classes. 5. Coronavirus: the pros and cons of keeping universities closed. The pros of keeping universities closed. 1. It makes me start and finish whatever University works is given to me and on time. I go to bed anytime I’m exhausted. 2. Not bothering about waking up early. The cons of keeping universities closed. 1. University closure creates a little bit bored with me. 2. It keeps me in my house all day. 3. It distances me away from my friends, classmates and University staff. 6. How do you spend your time now? Has anything changed in your daily routine? Hobbies before and during COVID-19. I spend my time on revising my University materials, researching, cooking, talking with my friends and family members around the World on Social media and following current news around the World. Nothing has changed in my daily activities. My hobbies before and during COVID 19 remained the same. 7. Did you try to learn something new or discover your new skills during a lockdown? (yoga, studying new languages...) I was struggling and still trying so hard to have a complete understanding of my new language (Russian Language), to be comfortable learning with it just like the native speakers. 8. What lesson have you learned from this pandemic? Please express the advantages and disadvantages of this situation Advantage. I learned that no one is an island. Meaning, no country can stand alone without the assistance of other countries. Germany donated China about 130 Billion Euro for Corona Virus damage. Cuba as a country has sent many doctors around the world, including Italy, South Africa and Venezuela among the list to help and fight Coronavirus. Disadvantage. I learned the highest percentage of lives destruction of the twenty-first century, where more than 330,083 people to be exact have lost their lives throughout the world and about 5, 108, 943 have already been confirmed infected in more than 213 countries. 9. Comparison of the lockdown in home and host countries. The home would have been little better, I would have been together with my family, compared to the host country, where there’s no single relative except my very good friends and the entire University management who are like parents and perfect guidance to me. The host country is not bad, but family members back home would always be worried and sceptical about the situation and condition I am living in. 10. Your communication circle during the quarantine. My communication circle during quarantine was superbly good.