They’re Telling Us We Have to Leave
As if starting my first week of online courses wasn’t stressful enough, I had received a vexing email. CSUN Student Housing was now urging students who can leave to move out of housing as soon as they could. I texted my mom who was 300 miles away, “They’re telling us we have to leave student housing unless we have ‘extenuating’ circumstances, are foster youth, or are international students.” Between her stressful job at Kaiser Permanente and renovating our house, she had to scramble to figure out how to get me home. She rounded up my aunt and uncle to help her move my belongings all the way to Northern California.
Just weeks prior my supervisor at my campus job announced that our school, California State University, Northridge, would be transitioning to alternative virtual methods after spring break. The rest of my shift left my coworkers and me in a state of panic and uncertainty as to what we’d do if our store did decide to close. I immediately thought: what will my coworkers who live paycheck to paycheck do without their campus job? What will CSUN do to help these students? Later that day, we received an email from our store manager that the cafe would be closed until April 20.
It was overwhelming to think that our school had joined the countless other schools that decided to close or switch to online classes due to the growing coronavirus cases. The rapidly growing pandemic has not only put myself and other students out of jobs due to campus closures but 10 million Americans have already filed unemployment claims. Economists from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis are projecting a 32.1% unemployment rate and the U.S. has not even reached its peak of the pandemic yet.
I reached out to my store manager from the Freudian Sip. After checking in on me, I finally asked her if the cafe will be closed for the rest of the spring semester or if we will be scheduled to open in April. She replied that we would be closing. It made me wonder how my other coworkers are doing in the midst of the madness. We have been pretty much left to deal with things all on our own. Jobs are becoming hard to come by since many places are closing until further notice and only essential jobs are moving forward as usual.
I have become one of the many who have lost a job and have had to evacuate their dorms. By the time I had packed up my things to leave, housing was empty. It was a ghost town. When CSUN student housing had initially told students they could leave, terminate their contracts, and possibly receive a refund, students did not hesitate to leave. Two of my roommates emptied their rooms and have left student housing just days after that email was sent out. An unexpected advantage in all of this is that I can spend time with family. I would have loved to stay in my own apartment to focus on my coursework. Since my parents are renovating our house, I fear it will be difficult to concentrate during my online classes. However, it is best to come home and be surrounded by family while the world struggles to recover.
The outbreak has exposed many things wrong with our system in the United States. I fear that once the worst is over, things will not change. This pandemic has brought to light economic, political, and social issues that otherwise would have gone ignored. It’s hard to say what will come out of all of this. Will things return to normal? Or will there be change?
It is hard to stay positive when things have turned upside down in the blink of an eye. However, I believe the worst is yet to come. After all, it is a pandemic, it shows no mercy.
