I really haven't spoken to classmates much if at all. I used to be able to see classmates, make friends through class, and talk to them, but now it's such a lonely thing that you don't see one another. Oftentimes you meet through classes. It [covid] kind of took it out of it.
Yes, even with the teacher. I have many friends that I knew from high school that I still kept friends with through college, and I still haven't seen them. Much of the time that I spent with people are people from outside of school, so it is really really hard. I can imagine what it's like for an incoming freshman. I'm a junior and I've grown used to this but like, it is so hard to experience college as it should be.
I totally miss it. I mean there's always that anxiety that you feel being the first person to say something, but I meet multiple people. Like I got to know some people through those group discussions and those group collaborations. Now it is like you have to do everything by yourself. I've taken two classes this summer and I've emailed those teachers maybe twice, but you still don't get to have that connection or you have to wait 6 hours for a response, maybe the next day
"I can imagine what it's like for an incoming freshman. I'm a junior and I've grown used to this but like, it is so hard to experience college as it should be."
I did once and no one really responded. It just gets sent to their email. No one really responds because they're just scrolling through emails.
I think you can do it on Zoom. I'm not really familiar with other class teaching formats. I know that you could message one another like during class time but that's about it.
Yeah, I have.
It was okay, it was just regarding specific questions during class.
No nothing beats the real thing. Like I miss office hours, even when like five or six of us students who really really needed help would just go to a teacher and just get specialized help.
I kind of have an outside experience because I am a stand-up comedian so I've become friends with many people who are in their 20s, 30s and even early 40s, so I am a totally different experience than a lot of college students. I get to see my adult friends a few times a week but most of my college friends don't really get to see anybody, and many of them had to leave their jobs, like their part-time jobs were they used to work and just live at home with their parents or their families and it’s like Snapchat, Instagram or FaceTime for them.
"You know it really just depends on the professors cuz some of them are more outdated and they don't really know how to use you know like Blackboard, and some of them don't even know how to really email. Honestly, it's just a learning process for them as much as it is for us."
Yeah I mean it's been like slightly lonely before that and now it's just entirely. Yeah like it's alone, some people don't even have extracurricular activities even. Yeah, it's very... My school is resuming in-person classes. They won't be doing any extracurriculars which is a lot of what the school does. It's a very very large school
Yeah, yeah. I mean I have, I know most people have.
The fear of covid is keeping me at home. I'm only taking one class that's in person. The rest of my classes are online.
I have no idea. I think it's social distance, they probably will be doing temperature checks once it starts. I have like about 2 weeks until we have everything going.
I, fortunately, did not. I got lucky because my teacher recorded all the lectures and that does relinquish you of all social connections.
Exactly, yeah. And you have to scrub through them and everything yeah.
I guess it helped me believe in myself more but also it does feel very very different. I have to search for different sources on how to learn stuff instead of using college which I paid for.
Exactly we can’t have like meetups at the library or anything like that.
I think it really is an obstacle course to try and maintain the college experience while also being within the bounds of this pandemic, cuz it is like a very frightening thing. I would say do groups, like separating people into groups where they could study together and where they could study online together probably. I had one class where we had to do group assignments like 6 months ago where we had to meet a few times a week. I had to meet in person but eventually, it became like a chat thing where we would just ask each other about everything so I would say maybe forcing groups of 5 or 4 students.
"I think it really is an obstacle course to try and maintain the college experience while also being within the bounds of this pandemic, cuz it is like a very frightening thing."