Explore the Archives
A Journal of the Plague Year Arizona Collection Australia Boston Bronx Community College New York Brooklyn College New York Canada Las Americas Lockdown Staten Island New Orleans Oral Histories Philippines Sacramento Community Based Organizations Southwest Stories Teaching the Pandemic The City College of New York

Collected Item: “CUNY's Response”

Give your story or documents a unique title.

CUNY's Response

Tell us a story; share your experience. Or describe the item you are submitting. What does the object or story you've uploaded say about the pandemic, and/or why is it important to you?

Where to even start? 2020, the year where everything and everyone changed forever. 2020 did not
just consist of the Covid Virus it consisted of many other threads that harmed everyone’s mental
health including students. It was hard for all students during this time but in my perspective
College students. This documents faithfully explain 2020 and I will be here to give you future
historians a more in depth look at how it really was during these times.
The document I chose not only explains how we went from going in person to virtual but
also how it made me feel as a visual learner and as a college student of course. CUNY mentioned
we were going to have a “Instructional recess from March 12-18th”, this day I will never forget
because I did not know that March 11th was going to be the last day of my two-years of college.
When I received this email on Twitter that CUNY had stated this I was overwhelmed and shocked.
The thought of everything being virtual just didn’t seem right to me, although I did have all the
access from computers to internet access, it just did not sit right. As a visual learner this was tough
for me, this was a moment of you get classwork and you basically have to teach it to yourself, not
seeing my professors in person and through a screen was very hard to get used to, the internet
sometimes would not work and it would cut off and I would miss most of the important things said
during the lesson, it was honestly very difficult, this was not just tough on students, as well as
professors having the same issues. This era was honestly tough, but technology really saved a
whole year worth of schoolwork. To the historians reading this in a couple of years from now, I, as
a person who lived through these times want you to understand the rough time we went through,
from masks to face shields to many deaths and virtually going to school. These were moments in
time that no one anticipated. It shaped the future into what it had become, masks may become the
new norm, working from home may be allowed for certain jobs and companies, schools just might
let people continue to be fully virtual and things may be extremely dependent on technology from
now on.
To conclude this 2020 document, though it was a rough year where millions of people died
worldwide, I can only be thankful that me and the ones I love are safe and okay. We now know
how to take proper precautions in case anything like this happens again, though I don’t wish for a
repeat of 2020. The year of 2020 is one for the books and one that will go down in history.

What sort of object is this, and where did you find it? (Examples: text story, photograph, screenshot, drawing, meme, personal essay, street art, etc.)

Tweet from CUNY, Screenshot

Are you the sole creator of these materials? Then select "I am sole creator." If no, please select "I have co-creators" and list the names of the content co-creators, their contact information, and the circumstances of how you came to have the materials. IMPORTANT: Each co-creator must fill out this form in order for the item to be accepted by the archives. However, only one co-creator is required to upload any document.)

I am sole creator

Name of the item creator, unless anonymous. If creator is unknown, leave blank.

Twitter, CUNY

Use tags (separated by commas) to describe your story or documents. For example: Does it relate to a particular neighborhood? Does it relate to a particular aspect of the pandemic?

School, Covid-19, pandemic, CUNY, virtual, computers.

Give a date associated with this story or documents.

2020-03-11

What is your affiliation, if any, with Bronx Community College?

Undergrad majoring in Criminal Justice

If what you are submitting was created as part of a Bronx Community College class, please indicate the course code (i.e., ENG1010) semester, and professor:

HIS 20; Professor Culkin

Select this box to agree to the Creative Commons NC-ND license as described in the above Submission Agreement.

I agree to a CC-ND-NC Licence
Click here to view the corresponding item.