What It’s Like To Be a Freshman In 2021

A pandemic, in the middle of the 21st century. COVID-19’s catastrophe is changing the human race in many ways, one of them being the way millennials expected to live. Girls all around the planet expected the moment to go to college and start a new life, with parties, festivals, dates and new friendships, but with the coronavirus, it’s all different. 

Since March 2020, we have to keep social distancing. As a consequence, students can’t go to universities. They need to stay home and study online, without the coolest part of being a freshman. To understand better what it’s like being a freshman in 2021, we talked with three freshmen girls, who will share their experiences with us.

Giulia Caielli, 17, student of Modern Languages at PUC-SP, São Paulo, vents: “It’s honestly very frustrating to study with online classes. To me, it’s harder to stay focused and socialize with my classmates. it’s been definitely more difficult”. It’s easy to understand her feelings. As freshmen, we know that social distancing is something to protect us as society, but it sure has a lot of disadvantages. It separates people and, unfortunately for students, disturbs the process of learning.

Laura Serafim, USCS law student, shared with us what she imagined for a normal freshman year: “for me, it would be mainly like meeting different people! Besides, studying in a different place, maybe even in a different city, would be so good! I think we realize the world is so tiny when we think of the opportunities we could have and so many people we could meet.”  It’s still one of freshmen’s biggest dreams to really know what it feels like to go in person to college, but we have to deal with it.

Maria Eduarda Calcagno Lemes, 17, who takes Psychology at USCS, has a tip for anyone out there struggling with this. “I like to talk about it with my parents, friends, therapist and especially with my boyfriend”, she says. “They help me to see the bigger image, clarify my thoughts and stay calm”. Maria’s example is one of our only solutions to help with the stress. If we don’t talk, we end up overloaded.

To top it off, Laura says what her hope for the rest of the year is: “I feel like we should be concerned about our mental health in the first place. I know that it is very difficult to see a tragedy every day, but we must keep trying. Use some spare time to get to know yourself better, don’t be so hard on yourself and find your own way to study. That’s what I’m trying to do. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t… and that’s okay! It’s a new situation for everyone.”

These amazing girls show us, freshmen in 2021, it is obvious that nobody wants to go through that moment. It’s hard, but you can do it! We have a light at the end of the tunnel. The important thing now is global health, so that, in the future, we can live the good things in life, safely.

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The article above was edited by Giulia Gianolla.

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• 2021
• covid
• freshmen
• pandemic
• study
• university