Dear Fellow Sophomores,
Is anyone else feeling dazed and confused? When did the University of Alabama suddenly start to resemble an alien planet? After the Zoom lectures, virtual club meetings, frantically checking the UA COVID-19 dashboard, and those few weeks of not being able to even eat inside of the dining halls, the unusual had become our, well, usual. I despise the term “new normal.” It suggests that one day we woke up to a radically changed world, shrugged our shoulders, and accepted our fate. Instead, I think my axis of what normal should be has been completely thrown off.
As a sophomore, I feel like I’m doing Freshman Year: Round 2 because of how different everything around campus feels. I don’t think that this phenomenon is exclusive to sophomores. Our campus is in this awkward fugue state of not knowing exactly what it should be. However, sophomores are suffering from this cognitive dissonance more than any other class because we have no pre-pandemic college experience to compare to this.
If you’re a sophomore, you’re not alone in these feelings. It’s okay to admit that it feels weird to sit in a packed classroom or see the Ferg bustling with activity (the space age Starbucks isn’t helping). It’s commonly known that transitioning from high school to college is hard and a little uncomfortable. Now, you have transitioned from a normal to a COVID high school senior year, then to a COVID freshman year, and finally to a semi-normal sophomore year. Given the challenges that you’ve faced, it’s—dare I say—normal and expected that you would feel displaced.
I wish I had the answers for you, I really do. I wish that there was a shining rainbow lesson that we could all take from the wackiness of the past eighteen months. Unfortunately, I’m all out of platitudes, mantras and Instagrammable quotes.
Instead, this is the message I’ll leave to you: The cruelty and mercy of college is its brevity. You only get to be young once. There’s a common belief that your youth is the prime of your life. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that only you can decide how you spend it. With that in mind, I’m choosing to take what I’ve learned from the past and step into this new chapter. It’s all that I can do. I hope you choose to step into this new era with me.
Your Peer,
Morgan Holder
Mental Health Resources:
University of Alabama Counseling Center
Free Online Mental Health Screening