A New Normal
An ISU senior reflects on the ways COVID-19 changed her college experience, and remains an obstacle.
I was in my second year of college at ISU when COVID first struck. Like the rest of the world, I thought it was scary to be in what was described as a global pandemic, but I never imagined it would last as long as it has or change my life forever.
The first couple of weeks, classes were moved online and though it may sound like it was the best option and possibly easier on my end, I found it to be much more difficult. I was in the last few weeks of my semester when ISU shut down, sending students home to complete the semester. This was COVID’s first attack on my day to day life.
Not only did I have to take the time to pack up and move two hours back home, I was thrown back into a home with a large family and younger siblings- distractions and chaos I did not need to get through “study week” or “finals” without the opportunity to have face to face contact to ask professors last minute questions.
It was very hard to adjust to online classes, especially when I paid to attend a university in person. At first everyone thought it would last a couple weeks, but that turned into months as COVID was evolving and new strands were being discovered. The next thing I knew my entire fall 2020 semester was online. Every time the world thought things would start to settle and “normal” life would refocus there was another variant of COVID or a new wave of positive cases. This is still true two years later.
Though pre-COVID life is beginning to return, I do not believe we will ever live in a world where COVID doesn’t exist or affect us in some way. In my last semester of college, the mask mandate has finally been lifted on campus for those who are vaccinated, but not for everyone. Thinking about graduating makes me realize that COVID altered and took away the college experience I had always dreamt of.
COVID is proving to decline in case count as individuals are vaccinated or grow immune to the virus, but there is yet another variant discovered called omicron BA.2. The omicron strand has proven to spread the quickest and is easily spread. Just when we think we have a vaccine or solution of some kind a new variant arises, again giving COVID the upper-hand of the lives of millions.
No matter what vaccine is created or what mandates the government holds, COVID will be in our lives forever. I often hear people say, ‘I can’t wait for this COVID nonsense to be over,’ or ‘I’m so ready to go back to how things were before.’ But nobody is understanding that the normal we remember no longer exists. We have to adjust to the new normal where COVID exists, whether it’s controlling aspects of our life or just another virus we have and need to take precaution for.
