FINAL: College During the Pandemic

#templesoced

The pandemic has uprooted almost, if not all, of the normal operations of colleges and universities. Sports look different, campus life looks different, and more importantly the way students are being educated has significantly changed. College was stressful before the pandemic, but the move to virtual instruction as well as all of the other mundane day to day life adjustments we’ve had to make in the past ten months, has led to many students feeling burnt out. It has also exacerbated inequalities that were present before.

For me personally, attending college during the pandemic meant that I came back home to Connecticut. When I was applying for universities in the fall of my senior year in high school, the most important factor for me was the school’s location. I wanted to be in a big city because of the professional opportunities that were more abundant and quite frankly, I wanted to move away from home. Because of Covid, however, I will be home until (at least) fall 2021. From my own personal reflections during the semester, I have noticed a pattern of exhaustion that hadn’t been present in semesters before. At the start of this fall semester, I put a lot of different responsibilities on my plate because I figured, “what’s one more zoom meeting?” It seemed silly not to take advantage of all of my “free time.” Because of this, I enrolled in six college classes, I continued my virtual internship from the spring semester, started participating in a virtual volunteer program all while having a part time job on the side. Safe to say, I am burnt out (and my interviewees expressed the same kind of emotions). The unique thing about doing everything virtually is that your brain is tired, your body is tired, but you don’t necessarily have anything to show for it. You didn’t leave your house, you probably stayed in the same position all day, (if you’re anything like me you’re in sweatpants 24/7) so it feels like you haven’t earned your exhaustion.

My first interviewee, Daniella also a 20 year old junior studying at the University of San Diego. In general, her opinion on how her school handled the pandemic was more positive. In March everyone was sent home but students who needed housing were able to stay and keep using the dining halls. For fall semester, however, Daniella’s school went completely virtual. The campus is still open for meals, the library and study centers but she mentioned that there are designated staff who walk around to ensure social distancing is being practiced. Before going back to California for the fall semester, however, Daniella had to move from her aunt’s house in New York back to her mother’s house in Connecticut because of her aunt’s immunocompromised status. Later when she moved to California in preparation for the fall semester, a family member who had just lost their job had to move in with her and her older sister. This busy household made it hard to focus at times. She stressed the importance of trying to separate school and home and so she picked a specific spot in the house to complete her work, barring herself from doing so in her bedroom.

Burn out and just overall feelings of exhaustion (whether physically or mentally) are not only my experience. Many students across the country are feeling it as well. One of my interviewees, Pedro a 20 year old junior studying at Fairfield University expressed his dislikes of online schooling. Pedro was a resident assistant last year but decided to not return to his position due to the pandemic. He felt his school didn’t do a good enough job in responding to the pandemic, especially in the beginning so he didn’t feel safe going back. The restrictions were very “loose” at the beginning of the semester and students could come on campus without a negative test. Because he’s a commuter this year, before coming on campus he would simply fill out a short survey and that was his way in. He said, however, that it’s very easy to lie and get the right answers and then be able to enter the campus. Similarly, the demographic and overall political views of the students of his campus made him worry that they wouldn’t take the virus seriously (ex: anti-maskers). As the semester progressed, his school implemented random weekly tests. Pedro says this wasn’t effective because in the span of one month he was chosen to be tested three times while he knew of others who probably needed it more that were never selected. In general, however, Pedro said “online classes are the death of me.” He expressed feeling unmotivated and having a hard time focusing when he is sitting at his computer the entire day. Likewise the loss of a clear distinction between school and work has been a hard thing to grapple with mentally.

This is why I really appreciated Nicole Gonzalez’s article titled “Educators Need to Employ Radical Compassion During Covid-19”. In this she makes a case for professors in particular but sociologists in general to apply compassion when it comes to their classes, research questions, and pedagogy. While I think professors should always employ compassion (many of their students are experiencing difficulties that they suffer in silence), but even more so right now. While this is new to everyone, it hasn’t impacted everyone equally. This pandemic has illuminated many inequalities that were ever present before. The article titled “College Made Them Feel Equal. The Virus Exposed How Unequal Their Lives Are” explains just that. In this article we can see how different students lives are even if they are all enrolled in the same university, in the same class. At the height of the pandemic, some students were able to retreat to their parents lake house while others had to help out in their family’s food truck in order to stay afloat. College is usually looked at as the great equalizer but it couldn’t be further from the truth right now. Some students are unsure of their next meals, others are working shifts at their retail jobs while logged into Zoom classes. These difficulties didn’t just pop up out of nowhere as soon as the pandemic hit. Financial insecurity, food insecurity, and housing insecurity have been issues that many college students have to face in addition to a full course load. The movie “Hungry to Learn” showed just that. Many students in the movie, and around the country more broadly, would skip meals because they didn’t have enough money to nourish themselves. Others resulted to their school’s food pantries (if they had them) in order to do their weekly shopping. The pandemic has only, in my opinion, exacerbated this issue. There has been countless media coverage of miles and miles long lines at food pantries across the country. The need has skyrocketed.

One of the biggest lessons that I’ve learned during this pandemic is just that: college is not and cannot be the great equalizer. It has flaws like every other system and to expect students who are attending college to just magically be able to rid their lives of all of the difficulties and challenges that they experienced leading up to enrollment is foolish, at best. Many students are housing and food insecure and being enrolled in a college or university doesn’t fix that issue overnight. Yes, many students attend college in order to have a chance at higher paying jobs afterwards but the conversation of what they have to endure during is largely absent. The pandemic has made the college experience increasingly hard. Students are still expected to complete assignments on time, keep up their grades, remained engaged in clubs and extracurriculars all the while their lives have been flipped upside down. The “pros” or the fun parts of the college experience have practically disappeared.