My experience of COVID in college has been quite weird. I was in school when COVID was first started and so I was able to live part of my freshman year and college on campus while the other half was online. This was quite a weird experience since I had always been used to having school in person and nothing so serious had ever happened since I was in school. These are some of the things I dealt with during my college years while dealing with COVID.
- Transitioning to online
Despite being online initially seeming fun, after a couple of weeks it no longer felt like that since I knew I would be stuck at my parents’ home instead of being able to go out and experience college life with my friends. Being online was a very different experience since it was harder to pay attention to a professor through a computer screen when I had many distractions.
- Being at home (with my parents)
After not really living with my parents, going back home felt really weird. I no longer had the same freedom as before and I wasn’t seeing my college friends anymore. Especially with COVID, going out was very uncommon and my parents were very strict even once restrictions were beginning to lift. They were still worried about the possibility of spreading COVID which makes tons of sense but it was a different experience than it had been before.
- Not really experiencing college normally
I think this was the worst part of the entire pandemic. I had various different plans and ideas of what I wanted to do during my years at college but COVID it made it much harder. Initially, I had wanted to study abroad and had planned it for Fall ‘20 or Spring ‘21 and both of them got canceled. I also participated in UCDC, but even that had to be remote because restrictions had not been lifted in DC. This made it less fun to be in college for some time since I wasn’t actually able to experience the best in-person college life.
These are some of the things that I had to deal with in college during COVID time. Despite changing many of the things that are usually experienced in college, I still managed to have fun and enjoy my time. Hopefully, your experience in college is better and you no longer have to deal with COVID.