COVID Across Campuses
Rutgers University student Alex Kayal thinks that the home of the Scarlet Knights have been playing things a little too safe when it came to university COVID-19 restrictions after keeping classes almost entirely online and offering next-to-none on campus housing.
Kayal is one of millions of students at U.S. college campuses who were thrust into a world of change as COVID-19 hit the country. While all students can relate to the common experience of having their college experience turn to Zoom University, students opened up to share their experience varies on a university-by-university level as the spring semester of 2021 winds down.
After getting kicked off campus in the spring of 2020, Kayal went with her family down to her beach house in Cape May, where they stayed from March until June. It was there that she finished out her sophomore year and began her first internship, a full-time and completely virtual position.
“It was isolating being so far away from my friends, even if I would have had to social-distance from them anyways,” she said.
Come fall semester, though, Kayal, a pharmacy student, came to find that Rutgers was offering extremely limited in-person classes and extremely limited on-campus housing.
Kayal, though she lived in an off-campus house with three housemates this past fall and
spring, wasn’t a big fan of this decision.
“I understood the precautions but I think some degree of in-person classes and offered housing is necessary for college students,” she said. “I think Rutgers put their students at a disadvantage to other schools in this way.”
Kayal’s roommate, Kayla Lally, felt that Rutgers University did the best they could while prioritizing student safety — though she worries she missed out on the valuable in-person learning that students at other colleges got.
“I think Rutgers handled COVID responsibly,” said Lally, a junior student. “Online classes weren’t the idea option, but it was the best way to keep everyone healthy.”
Owen Bahasuan is currently a freshman, living on campus, at Florida Institute of Technology, majoring in aviation management with a minor in flight. When the pandemic began, he was a senior in high school.
When Bahasuan got onto campus for his first semester in fall 2020, Florida Institute of Technology was operating under a hybrid system.
“I felt that was a good balance with restrictions, but I found that many students, including myself, lost motivation near the end of the semester,” he said. “There were also restrictions about leaving the county, which made it hard for people to see their families.”
In the spring, travel restrictions had lifted, though most classes had moved back online. This proved to be a significant challenge for Bahasuan, who got very easily distracted due to a lack of classroom engagement.
“I often found myself just letting the classes run while I slept or did something else,” he said.
With his first year of college tucked under his belt, Bahasuan is disappointed in his inability to connect with his fellow students during a time where isolation and distance was emphasized.
“I never got to know anybody and I had a very small group of friends,” he said. “I rarely ever went and did stuff with people and mostly stayed in solitude.”
Across the country in a much warmer state than Kayal and much drier state than Bahasuan, sophomore Dennis Balkiewicz has been living through the pandemic as an Arizona State University cybersecurity major.
Balkiewicz found himself “confused and a little concerned” at the introduction of the government mandated lockdown back in March 2020.
For the fall semester, Balkiewicz moved from his home in Pennsylvania to an apartment off campus, where Arizona State University had several restrictions in place, such as minimal campus access, all virtual classes, required quarantines for students who have traveled via airplane, mask mandates and social distance enforcements.
“ASU created a daily health check system where students were required to log their symptoms, in exchange for access to their student accounts,” he said. “I feel as though these restrictions were reasonable, given the circumstances.”
One year later, spring semester is coming to a close while many of the restrictions — including the daily health check, required masks on campus — are still in place, but hybrid classes “began to pop up here and there for students who wanted to return to campus,” Balkiewicz said. Arizona State University plans to get back to fully-in person by fall 2021.
“I think my school responded swiftly and effectively to the new situation we all found ourselves in,” he said. “While not a personal preference, online learning was a necessary evil to combat the virus in its earliest stages. My school has done well to provide support to students who may have been affected by the virus, allowing for pass-fail grading, and dropping assignments as needed.”
Balkiewicz’s roommate, Antonio Gutierrez, said that they took COVID-19 seriously at their university and in their apartment, finding Balkiewicz’s dedication to following restrictio\ns to be admirable.
“Dennis followed all of the ASU covid protocols and was accommodating and weary of those that are more at risk than he is,” junior student Gutierrez said. “He took the necessary steps to not only protect himself but those around him.”
With his sophomore year coming to a close and his junior year looming in the distance, Balkiewicz is looking to settle back into normalcy.
“I will not be taking pandemic-free days for granted any time soon. The slow return to an unaltered routine will be blissful, to say the least,” he said. “Moral of the COVID story: be prepared for anything; life as you know it can change in the blink of an eye.”
