Keeping student life alive during the pandemic

While the pandemic has significantly curtailed CCAs (co-curricular activities), our student leaders press on undaunted, while improvising or creating new initiatives to keep student life thriving. Life Sciences Major CHONG Yong (picture below) and an ExCo member of NUS Mountaineering, is one such example.

Chong Yong and his team were the first batch of student mountaineers affected by COVID-19. They were unable to go for their Technical Mountaineering Course expedition, although they were midway through training and preparations.

He said, “That was when I started thinking about how I could contribute to the NUS Mountaineering community as well as the broader student community. I wanted to inspire the next generation of student mountaineers, and to continue creating a sense of belonging through shared experiences.”

He decided to make full use of the Zoom platform for members to learn from experienced mountaineers. “We gathered speakers from past and present cohorts of NUS Mountaineering to share their unique and personal experiences.” Different topics were covered each week, from what to wear in the mountains to navigating them. Through eight online sessions in the first semester, members met fellow enthusiasts and gained insights at the same time.

The team also organised ‘NUSummiteers: A digital challenge to scale peaks’. The inaugural event brought together 100 members and non-members. The attendees challenged themselves through mountaineering training drills and went beyond their usual routines. They did this remotely, and took videos and photos of themselves in action which they shared with fellow participants.

These initiatives not only ‘brought the mountains to students’, they also gave aspiring student mountaineers a platform to continue learning about the basics of mountaineering.