The world is never going to be the same again: How did the 21st century pandemic change university students?

Abstract

Many human beings, in the wake of the pandemic and the profound health crisis that we have experienced as humanity, have changed their perspectives on the meaning of life, after observing helplessly the massive contagion and the death of family, friends and acquaintances in collapsed hospitals by patients diagnosed with COVID-19. This article proposes to write and analyze experiences of human beings affected by the pandemic and virtual reality, from the proposal of existential anthropology, which proposes to focus on the processes of identity production and to recognize the discursive nature of subjective experiences, through stories, narratives and stories of university students, who acquire a central role in the constitution of their identities and perspectives on their current situation and their future life.