How sophomores dealt with the coronavirus and their reactions to the mandates being lifted
STATE COLLEGE, Pa.- Some sophomores at Penn State are hoping for a normal fall 2022 semester after two years of dealing with the coronavirus and the mandates that came with it.
Sophomores this year would’ve been seniors in spring 2020 when the coronavirus shut high schools down in March. The virus took away the then-senior prom and in-person graduation. They had to follow mandates and social distancing laws once they arrived to State College as freshmen.
Despite this, these sophomores found ways to keep themselves occupied during their first two years of college.
Reporting for the Daily Collegian
After a long day of reporting on Penn State football, Spencer Ripchik sits down in the confines of the Willard Building.
He sits down with a meticulous look on his face as he gets ready to type out another story. With the football season around the corner, the news has picked up rapidly.
As he listens to the recordings of the media availability, he begins swiftly typing away to get the story out as quickly as possible.
“Man, I’m tired,” Ripchik says to the people sitting around him. Compared to last year, they were all maskless just like the media availability.
During the 2020 season, media availability for Penn State football was all online. For the 2022 season, just like the school, the coronavirus mandates are potentially going away.
“It feels good to cover a sport that I love and the mandates being lifted at the same time,” Ripchik (sophomore-digital/print journalism). “Next semester should be a lot of fun.”
For Ripchik, his high school, Saratoga Springs High School, was shut down on March 13, 2020. While he was not able to have a prom, his school did a drive-thru graduation. He didn’t miss out on any spring sports, as he only played football in the fall. He also didn’t miss out on prom because he went to his junior prom. For these reasons, he didn’t feel any “bad” feelings that the rest of his senior year was taken away.
That sense of normalcy would not return into the Fall 2020 semester, as the campus enforced masking and social distancing protocols.
“I think all of freshman year, it was kind of odd because we didn’t have a normal college experience during our freshmen year,” Ripchik said. “We didn’t know what normal was, especially in the freshmen dorms. We literally had to wear masks in the bathrooms.”
Even with the coronavirus, students were still allowed to get involved in extracurricular activities. For Ripchik, he was able to get involved with the Daily Collegian in September 2020. The first sport that he covered was men’s lacrosse. The same social distancing and mask protocols were applied to it too.
“Everything was on Zoom,” Ripchik (sophomore-digital/print journalism). “We couldn’t go to the office and if we did, we had to wear masks and social distance. The office was also downtown at the time.”
Despite this, it gave him the opportunities necessary to become a better writer in a time when the university was enforcing social distancing and masking rules.
As Ripchik got into his second year, he became a men’s basketball reporter. Last year, fans were not allowed into the stands because of the coronavirus. During the 2021–22 season, fans were allowed in the stands and reporters like Ripchik were allowed to be in-person. Ripchik said he felt like he became a “better” journalist by reporting in-person.
Outside of reporting, when the news that the mask mandate would be lifted for the time being on March 23, Ripchik said he is looking forward to experiencing a normal school life that he hasn’t had since February 2020.
“My initial reaction when I heard of the news that the mask mandate was being lifted was a sense of joy,” Ripchik said. “Just knowing that everything might go back to normal as long as nothing drastic happens.”
Zach Allen, who will be working alongside Ripchik on the football staff, is excited to work on stories together.
“It’ll be cool to cover the biggest sport that we have,” Allen (sophomore-digital/print journalism) said. “I can’t wait to work with a great staff going forward.”
Getting involved in Panhellenic life
While Ripchik figured out how to manage life on campus with the coronavirus by reporting, Rylee Obringer chose to join Panhellenic life.
During the spring 2021 semester, she would join the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority.
While with the sorority, she was able to participate in THON in February, having stood in the stands with her friends and held up one of the letters in “THON”. Besides THON, she has attended other events on/off campus that has allowed her to become closer with the members.
Along with getting to be around the sorority, she has also made friends with members of the other fraternities/sororities on the campus. As it got into the fall 2021 semester, Obringer and a bunch of her friends were living downtown. It was a lot more freedom for them to be around parties held by other friends.
Obringer said Panhellenic life softened the blow of having her senior year in high school cut short and her freshman year impacted by the coronavirus.
“It has been one of the best experiences for me because I got to meet so many people,” Obringer (sophomore-supply chain management) said. “It definitely made having to deal with the protocols much better.”
Now, getting to move into The Legacy with a group of friends she lived with her sophomore year, Obringer said she can’t wait to see what the future holds going forward as some of the events on campus for the sorority will not require masks. Taking advantage of the coronavirus restrictions being lifted for travel, she was able to spend her first spring break in Cancun with the members.
For Alexandra Ferry, who joined a sorority this semester and has been friends with Obringer since spring 2021, said joining a sorority has been one of the best experiences she’s had so far.
“I have made so many friends that could be life-long friends in such a short amount of time,” Ferry (sophomore-finance) said. “I recommend anyone to join a sorority or frat. It’s a lot of fun.”
Partying with friends
One of Obringer’s roommates going into next year is Olivia O’mara.
While Ripchik and Obringer were content that his high school was shut down, O’mara was the opposite.
At Oxford High School an hour outside of Philadelphia, she thought it would be a fun “two-week” break when news broke that her high school would be shutting down. Once the news was released that the whole year was canceled and there would be no walk across for graduation, O’mara felt “sad” for the way things ended.
When fall 2020 rolled around, O’mara was stuck in the confines of Snyder Hall when she got to State College. She was able to find her friends during her freshman year, but there were social distancing and masking protocols that the dorms had to follow. O’mara, along with her friends, had to work around them.
“We made do with what we could do,” O’mara (sophomore-hospitality management) said. “We weren’t allowed to go into other people’s dorms. There was only one place where you could eat, so there were a lot of restrictions.”
“We would hang outside a lot, like at the IM fields, and stuff so that we couldn’t get in trouble,” O’mara added.
For her sophomore year, O’mara gained the necessary freedom by getting to live off campus at Cedar Lofts East. She said he has consistently been able to go to parties at her friends’ places downtown. Also, it has been a nice escape away from campus as the mask mandate was enforced on campus for the fall 2021 and some of the spring 2022 semester.
With O’mara and her friends moving to The Legacy in the fall, she feels a sense of content that she will be experiencing a normal semester potentially.
“It’s weird that it’s two years later,” O’mara said. “I can already tell that people in my classes are more willing to talk to each other now that we don’t have masks on. You can tell they are more friendly.”
Kaitlyn Baker, one of O’mara’s friends, has been around her since freshmen year and said she is looking forward to being downtown again with an upcoming normal semester.
“We’ll be 21 next year, so it’ll be a lot of fun to be around each other,” Baker (sophomore-biobehavioral science) said. “We’ll be going out to bars and stuff.”
