All students have returned to campus this fall for the first time since 2019.
For several of the freshmen coming in, this is their first time being in a real classroom setting since their junior year of high school when the pandemic began. This calls for an abundance of adjusting to matters such as living on campus, having access to all events, and attending real classes.
When talking with Lauren Holderman, a first year Pharmacy student, she voiced her feelings stating that, “It has been extremely hard going from an isolated setting to a semi social one now, educationally it is definitely different now because of how much technology we use and socially it is an adjustment to be thrown back in with random people”.
Freshmen such as Lauren are not the only ones adjusting in this case though. Students were told in urgency to pack all of their belongings and leave campus to continue their classes from home online for the remainder of the semester in March of 2020 just after Saint Patrick’s Day.
School after this was looking unpredictable in the midst of a pandemic, but the students were able to complete the 2021 spring semester while in a hybrid phase. During this masks were worn everywhere, students were quarantined and still attending class online though, a majority of the lectures were given online and there were occasional in person lectures.
Now, students enrolled at Ohio Northern this year are placed into full classes that are attended everyday compared to what has happened in the past years. Talking to senior Cassandra Stuber, who has had all four years look different, said to me, “The classes became easier because lectures were recorded and could be reviewed. The curriculum became easier because most teachers just gave a large time frame for exams that were open notes.” She went on to discuss more than just education, “Food was all take-out. There weren’t many social events or social gatherings”.
Based on the first hand accounts of students, and how much change we have seen in the world over the past few years, adjusting is something everyone has to do. Adjusting to COVID-19 means students adjusting in a classroom, in their dorm life, and in their social life along with so much more.