It’s a cold and rainy Wednesday with the few students to be seen making their ways in rain jackets and under umbrellas just as one expects. 

But this is the second full semester since the global pandemic started. These students carry their dining commons meals in bags and to go boxes, with face masks either worn or visible, and meal delivery robots zipping around on their own schedules. The green way which would have previously been populated by flocks of multicolored rain gear only see a stray student here and there. 

For those of us who have been here since before the covid pandemic began to impact us this is still something we’re getting used to. 

But for Freshmen, this has been their entire college experience. We talked to them to get a better insight into what this brave (and sort of soggy) new world is like from their perspectives.

We were able to talk to Lynnsey Eckler and Megan Cole about their experience so far as they made their way around Centennial Place.

“It kinda stinks, the no guests in the dorms. I know they said in the beginning of school that the rotunda is full of all the clubs and stuff, so like we don’t really know what’s going on with any of that. And that kinda stinks but other than that, it’s been ok.” started off Lynnsey Eckler.

Megan agreed and added on, “And also you have to be really proactive as far as your classes and stuff, they’ll have different schedules. So like because it’s hybrid, some days you’ll go in person and some days you won’t. Like it’ll be every other week or every three weeks and it’s a lot to keep up with.” Megan Cole

Leslie Incland, who also agreed to speak to us despite the weather, seemed to agree on account of the classes when we spoke with her, “It’s not the easiest, because you change from being in classes in high school to last semester I had no in-person classes, they were all online. It was pretty hard. […]This semester all of my classes are in person so I definitely like that a lot better than the virtual classes. I just like in person classes better.” 

“It’s been not what I expected, a lot more time online,” Aidan Chambers “but you know. I’ve enjoyed it here.”

When we asked Ayden if this had put a damper on his college experience he agreed it had saying, “I think it has on the social aspect a little definitely, but I’ve got hope things will get better.”

“One of my senior high school teachers gave us some really good advice. He told us, we’re walking into college for the first time anyways so we already are new and we already don’t know what’s going on.” Shared Justin Roberts. 

Justin explained, “So we’re kind of at an advantage compared to other college students who kind of had a routine and were used to it. […] We already didn’t know what college was going to be like, so we had the chance to learn it this way instead of a routine way.”