Back. On. Campus.
8.22.21 - First week as a sophomore/freshman 2.0, experiencing life on campus "after" a pandemic
This article was originally drafted the first week back on campus (8/22/21), but I didn’t get around to posting it until now. Enjoy!
Yeah I’m back.
After a long summer, including a crazy 10-day Yellowstone trip, a month-and-a-half living and researching in Puerto Rico, and surviving two weeks at home with my family, I’m finally back on campus.
Feels weird. Definitely.
I’m living “on my own” for the first time (but not really, I’ve really been living on my own since I was 15, living in the dorms for four years total throughout high school and freshman year of college). But I’m a sophomore now, so things are different. I’m grown-up (sure). So now I have an apartment (wow!). It’s strange. I no longer have access to readily-available food and a close community of other students around me. I’m not used to it.
Living with three friends I met last year while living in the dorms, things are off to an interesting start. Everyone’s settling in to the apartment, figuring out how to cook for themselves, sustain themselves, etc. Let’s see how this goes.
There’s no way to explain how being on campus “after a pandemic” feels (and I say “after”, we’re so far from being done with COVID, but that’s a whole other conversation). Things almost seem normal again, or what would’ve been considered normal before March 2020. Freshmen are getting a true “welcome week”, and I’m a little jealous.
I and others in my sophomore class have never experienced any of these true stereotypical “freshmen” activities and it’s a little disheartening to see these kids (I say kids, they’re a year younger than me, wait, does that mean I’m a kid?) experiencing things I never have.
The university is doing what they can, because they know we feel this way. But even so, it’s still not quite the same. After missing out on senior year of high school, to missing out on some of the most important events of freshmen year, how do you cope?
Simple. You keep moving forward, as I am. Because in retrospect, not experiencing those “typical” things doesn’t really matter as much as you think it does (even though it might not feel that way sometimes). The “typical” things are where memories are supposedly made with friends from the past and with friends I haven’t met yet, but thankfully I have a little less than three years of college to meet those friends, make those memories, and build those relationships, and I’m ready. So so ready.
I’m looking forward to these coming weeks, however daunting they may seem. But I’m more than up to the challenge. I won’t let my worries hold me back from getting one step closer to who I want to be, who I will be, and who I already am.