Items

• 2020-03-24

  From The Traditional to the Unknown: Moving from In-Person to Online Learning

  Much like other college students in the spring of 2020, I did not know how to react to the news that a virus called COVID-19 had begun infecting major cities, towns, and people. As an avid gamer, it appeared to me as though we started heading down the path of a zombie apocalypse or something similar to that, such as the ones you see in Call of Duty. I can still remember where I was as a sophomore in college when my school decided that it needed to shut down, sending students back to their homes and moving classes to the online world. At the start of what became pandemonium, I was with my friends in one of their dorm rooms, and we watched as the former president of the school, with a panel of other officials, answered questions about the pandemic and how the institution would respond. From my perspective, it seemed that no one knew what to do, and it was disconcerting to see that the leaders of the school were themselves in a state of flux. But who could blame them? In many ways, that spring of 2020 was unchartered waters, where everyone, including our leaders, did not know what to do or how to set forth a concrete plan. The lack of certainty, as I recall, led many students to become unsure of how the school would handle classes, graduation, plans for reimbursement for housing and dining costs, and, most importantly, the health and safety of the students and faculty. From that moment in spring 2020, it seemed that the college landscape would never be the same. With that said, this leads me to the point of my story. When the school decided that all classes would go online for the remainder of the spring 2020 semester and the entirety of the following school year, 2020 - 2021, it seemed entirely new and, in some ways, scary. Never before had I taken online classes, let alone know how to operate a program called Zoom. When I read the newsletter from my school saying that the 2020-2021 academic year would be online, it seemed, from my view, almost pointless to make students do schoolwork at a time when everyone was more concerned about their health and not getting other people sick. From that perspective, I felt angry, confused, and dismayed about how online classes would work. More importantly, I wanted to know how professors would respond to the situation, hopefully having them recognize that they should not assign a traditional amount of school work for a semester course given the extenuating circumstances beyond the classroom and college. I can still recall taking my first online class, and I felt utterly lost. I did not know how to operate Zoom, I did not know how to interact with my professors and classmates by staring into a camera on my computer, and I did not know, at the start, how challenging it would be to feel motivated to do the schoolwork. The latter was a difficult obstacle to overcome as being back at home and not in a classroom made it easier to forgo doing school work for a day, creating a lackadaisical mindset that negated my ability to do my assignments in a timely manner. On top of that, not being able to physically see my professors, either in class or in their office, made it even more difficult to ask questions. As someone who typically raises an abundance of questions, it seemed to me that that was no longer possible. Having to send several emails back and forth and then only have a few minutes to speak with a professor on Zoom after or before class made the process more cumbersome. The transition from the traditional classroom setting to the unknown world of online learning was a significant curve ball created by the pandemic that made the last part of my sophomore year and my entire junior year feel less important. The online medium essentially made the coursework seem less valuable to me. Even though I lived on campus in my junior year, 2021 - 2022, at the height of the pandemic, the educational side of my college experience became impacted to such a degree that I found myself not as engaged about the work or the course material. To that end, I share this story because it is one of many about how the pandemic took a substantial bite out of educational processes from 2020 into 2021. The classroom never felt the same during the pandemic and when I was on campus in 2021. Everywhere was a ghost town. In many ways, having to go from the traditional classroom into the expansive world of online learning was not something I thought I needed to think about as a college student. Of course, no one could have predicted what was going to happen, making the situation during that time all the more difficult to accept. I look back on it now and realize that I did lose a year and a half of my college experience. It is an unfortunate outcome of the pandemic, but I am thankful that no one in my family passed away from the disease, and all of my friends were safe as well. I wish I could relive my sophomore and junior years as a regular college student. However, having gone to college in the midst of the pandemic is historic, and I want to tell other generations about this experience. It will be challenging for future students to know what it was like to go to school at the same time a rampant disease spread across the globe. On the flip side, I think going to college during this time shows resiliency and courage on the part of many people. I hope this story is one that many can relate to as we move forward from these troubling years and continue to grapple with the legacy caused by the pandemic.
• 2020-03-13

  What the pandemic!

  March 13, 2020. I am sitting in the middle of senior civics class taking the biggest test of the year. My teacher gasps turning off the lights, and turns on the projector to reveal an email notice to all staff from the principal. This email is alerting us of a district wide shutdown on schools for two weeks. Everyone is confused, but being 17, thinks nothing of it and finishes our tests. Upon living school that day full of excitement, my mom calls my sister and I telling us to bring everything home from our lockers as the nation is shutting down. She tells us to come straight home, no stops under any circumstances. We ride home in eerie silence. Two years later, I still have a vivid memory of the moments leading up to lockdown in my bedroom for months. This pandemic has not only affected literally every aspect of mine and many others lives, but everyone has a very individualized story.
• 
  2020

  My Mom Working in the COVID ICU

  While this is not me, it is still important to me since it is my mom. She has worked in the COVID ICU almost the entire time, and I was really affected by seeing her gowned up like that the first time. Her career during my lifetime has not required so much PPE, so it was a really surreal moment that forced me to really appreciate the extremity of the pandemic and how much danger my mom was in.
• 
  2020-10-01

  Life During the Pandemic

  This photograph is about the time that my sister and I went to a pumpkin patch with a friend of ours. It was a different experience because we had to wear masks and keep our distance from the rest of the people, we had gone to a pumpkin patch the year before and it was completely different because we didn’t have to maintain our distance of wear masks and we were free to roam around wherever we liked. The reason why this was important to me is because I remember since it was our first time doing an activity like this during the COVID where there was a little bit more risk we were a little scared but at the same time we thought we can’t just stay inside forever and stop living.
• 
  2019-05-26

  The Virus

  When covid hit it was really hard to travel anywhere, and my family wanted to go to florida.
• 
  2020-12-16

  Covid-19

  My story is that we had to change our whole lives because of this. With online school, no toilet paper, masks, social distance, and so many more protocols. This year has been the craziest year in a while and I'm only thirteen. We had to quarantine ourselves away from others for so long that when I finally started seeing my friends again it was like I hadn't seen them in like 8 months. Through all these months the only people I was able to be around was my family. Don't even get me started on not being able to see my grandparents. Because they were at higher risk in never saw them like once for so long and I would normally talk with them all the time but I couldn't.
• 
  2020-10-21

  Meanwhile in Ohio

  Scrolling through Facebook I came across this on my feed. A home in Ohio has been decorated for Halloween COVID style. I thought this was a hilarious way to showcase how COVID has affected every aspect of our lives. I love seeing the humor during this time when we need it most. It looks like the biggest and scariest skeleton is playing dodgeball with COVID balls. I’m not sure which skeleton I loved most, the one with the Lysol or the one with the toilet paper.
• 
  2020-10-02

  Trump COVID

  To me this article shows that anybody even the president can get COVID. It was also scary to think about the president possibly dying form the disease.
• 
  2020-08-14

  Beneath the Mask

  Would you believe me if I told you this piece of cloth and string caused protests across the country? Honestly, nothing about this entire pandemic resonates with me as hard as the mask debate. The fact that people had the issues with wearing protective gear when necessary terrifies me. I understand why people might not be willing to wear a mask, but I also understand why someone would want to swim in shark-infested waters. Does not mean I want to join in with them. It’s just crazy to me that something as simple as this caused such a huge debate.
• 
  2020-07-04

  COVID-19 Family Quarantine

  It shows the impact of this virus on my family's lives as well as my own. I feel my experience is one story to the many that can provide context on the interesting times we live in.