The university’s first term of online delivery has brought student-to-student communication to a different format.

To help the switch to online, students in various courses and programs are creating group chats on platforms like WhatsApp and Discord to better connect with each other. For third-year psychology student, Alex Ginther, these group chats create a sense of community, which many students are struggling to find this year. Ginther finds class group chats helpful in communicating with fellow students and better understanding courses. 

“I started off the first term of online feeling quite lonely, and once someone created a group chat I felt like I was back in a community,” Ginther said in an email to the Sheaf.

Ginther has created group chats for all of her classes this term, some of which have no online group work, live lectures or interactions.

“[The group chat] allows us to talk to fellow students and still have a sense of community,” Ginther said. “It also allows us to work together when we have questions or are struggling with a certain material.”

Third-year biochemistry student Taha Silat has created a Discord server for all biomedical science students, with channels within the server for specific classes.

“I wanted [the server] to be a place [where] students within various biomedical fields … can connect with each other and feel a sense of belonging,” Silat said in an email to the Sheaf. 

Silat recommends Discord over WhatsApp because students can find all their information and classes within one server instead of multiple chats, and also because Discord is more confidential than WhatsApp, since it does not require sharing a phone number.

“With a Discord server, I was able to solve all these problems and make a place where all biomedical sciences students could come together and connect with each other,” Silat said.

Udoka Ezeaka, a fifth-year physiology and pharmacology student, says she found the group chats helpful for asking questions, instead of having to reach out to professors for simple issues.

“It’s a lot easier when a student tells you and breaks [it] down,” Ezeaka said. “It’s really a lot more convenient than talking to the teachers, because sometimes they take a while to reply.”

Ezeaka, although personally having a large friend group, found that group chats can be helpful for those struggling with creating friendships.

“I feel like a lot of people are just happy to interact with other students because a lot of them are either first-years or they don’t live in Canada or they’re doing different majors and juggling a lot of things, so group chats still give them that attachment towards school and community,” Ezeaka said.

Whether or not these online communities continue after in-person classes resume is hard to predict. Silat hopes that these communities will continue when people are back on campus, but Ezeaka finds they are only a replacement for in-person interactions.

“It just wouldn’t be a need anymore if people are able to interact with other people in person rather than online,” Ezeaka said.

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Wardah Anwar | News Editor