As I write this article, sitting in the BU School of Law tower that overlooks the Charles River, I think about how I ended up here. Nearly six months ago, I was still at home, navigating my new life and daily routine that began in early 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic. The second half of my senior year of high school was taken from me, but I was looking forward to the freedoms and experiences that college life would bring me. However, I found myself having very few expectations for what those freedoms and experiences would be, given that the pandemic had changed everything.
When I look back on my social experiences so far, I realize that online classes or socially distanced classrooms have significantly changed the nature of my interactions with others. Meeting new people was and has been very difficult. I feel like a lot of my friends throughout high school were ones that I originally connected with in the classroom. Now, even if you do find friends, it’s extremely difficult to spend time together, safely. Restrictions are tight, so I had to get creative to find ways to safely spend time with friends. Movie nights became Netflix Parties, and visiting friends’ rooms to hang out was a thing of the past. There are so many people to meet in college, and I feel like that has also been limited. A lot of the activities I was looking towards, like Splash and sorority recruitment were all online. As a rookie on the Dance Team, I was unable to perform with my team at basketball games, and we now cannot travel to Florida for Nationals. This has certainly taught me a lot about resilience. I think if I had to describe the past year or so, it would be that word: resilience. Having so much taken away from me at a prime time in my life was a tough pill to swallow. While online alternatives make the situation slightly better, it’s not the same. I long for the days when I can experience my college social life the way I normally should. But until then, I will keep looking for ways to make the best out of the situation. I had a lot of fun with the friends I did make during the first semester, and I look forward to the people I will meet in the future.
As for academics, learning through Zoom is extremely tough. Zoom fatigue is real. I don’t even want to know how many hours I spent staring at my laptop screen during the first semester. I will say though, I’m really glad I bought blue light glasses. I spent a lot of time doing work and studying in my room and thus discovered the importance of finding new places to work. I made it my mission to explore campus and find a place I could be productive. This was especially helpful before and during finals week, where I found it hard to keep my motivation up. I feel like this is a common piece of advice, but I don’t think I embraced it enough: get to know your professors. Approaching professors for help can be daunting, and it took time for me to warm up to joining office hours or asking questions in lectures with 100+ people. But, I realized that I had a lot of similar questions to my peers. And so all it took to fix our confusion was for someone to speak up. College has definitely given me some courage. It’s easy to fear what others think of you, or thinking a question may sound stupid, but in the long run, what’s most important is doing what is best for you. I also found that I can’t procrastinate schoolwork. Before college, I was able to push work until the last minute and just grind my work out, but my schedule is so much different now.
I never would have believed you a couple of years ago if you had told me that I would be starting college during the middle of a pandemic. But, here we are. I’ve learned so much already, and it hasn’t just been in my classes. I know that the next three years have so much to offer, and I hope I can someday experience what college is like normally.
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