Living with Uncertainty in Times of Pandemic: The View of Working Students in Higher Education

Abstract

Today we live in times of real uncertainty. All of us, young, old, adults or children, experience new ways of facing daily challenges. The education and health sectors are naturally the most affected and deserve to be assessed for the impacts of this pandemic. This chapter aims to focus its analysis on a specific group of students in higher education: working students. In fact, this population group has a distinct profile from “regular” students in higher education. Typically, the student role is not the predominant one in their lives, competing with their roles as active workers and as heads of their families. Choosing a quantitative scientific methodology, about a hundred working student were the target of a survey exploring not only their greatest anxieties and fears, but also the ways they choose to deal with it, namely their exposure to media coverage of the COVID-19. It is expected that the results will contribute to a critical reflection on the challenges that this pandemic poses to us, identifying clues to better manage and overcome them.