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As a school that focuses on diversity and inclusivity, Santa Margarita Catholic High School incorporates a large and diverse international student body. Being an international student myself, I find my life more difficult as an effect of Covid-19. Therefore, the topic of students of different nationalities living under the pandemic interests me.

Negeen Agharokh is a senior at SM. She is Persian and is born in the U.S. Negeen said that the pandemic did not impact her life that much except for letting her feel lonely and isolated.

“Everywhere was closed, all the stores were closed, there’s nothing to do,” said Negeen.

However, Negeen did mention how distance learning improved her grade since she had more room to study. Negeen’s goal is to get into a medical school, and getting good grades and getting good scores on SAT and MCAT.

Dut Lual is also a senior. He’s from South Sudan and has been studying abroad for 4 years. Since Dut is a 7 ft tall basketball player, the pandemic was destructive to his athletic career.

“It was really hard, especially since I’m an athlete. Not being able to go out and play basketball, it was really tough,” Dut said.

Due to the covid guidelines, the committee canceled Dut’s basketball tournament and season. Nevertheless, Dut claimed that the pandemic did improve his grades and school performance.

“Now my goal is to go to college, because where I come from, nobody went to college,” Hopefully the positive impact of the pandemic could provide a solid foundation for his medical school and NBA dream.

Delano Meindl is a junior at SM. He coincidentally moved to the U.S. from Germany right during the pandemic. According to Delano, having an international trip during the pandemic wasn’t pleasant at all.

“Our flight was canceled, and we couldn’t fly. It was delayed and everything was really stressful,” said Delano.

Fortunately, Delano and his family successfully entered the U.S. after the crisis. He said that after that stressful period of time, the pandemic never affected his life again. Delano’s goal is to continue to study film even in college, he emphasized that he will definitely do film-related subjects.

Matilde Turrini is a senior at SM. She’s Italian and has been studying at SM for 4 years. Matty first commented on the pandemic as weird, then claimed that she actually enjoyed it because of the online school. However, the pandemic did impact her career as a swimmer.

“It was very tough for swimming because we couldn’t train as a team,” Matty said.

Luckily, Matty managed to think optimistically. She said that she experienced the pandemic as a time of regeneration and a break. Matty’s goal right now is to get into college and be able to swim all four years while getting a good education.

The interview’s mission is to open up a wider angle of the life of minorities. Students with diverse cultural backgrounds could inspire each other with a range of social and cognitive beliefs. While providing local students with greater multicultural awareness, the international student body also encourages the school with the acceptance to the diverse world, inspiring our SMCHS community to blossom.