A year ago, the world turned upside down for IU students and professors. On March 10th, 2020 IU President Michael McRobbie sent out an email saying that IU’s spring break would be extended by two weeks. This initial email was exciting for many IU students but IU students like Sydney Morrow weren’t hopeful they’d return after that.
“Some other schools had already made the decision to do more than the two weeks. I was like at least we’re getting this, but I doubt we’ll be back anytime soon,” says Morrow.
A second email was sent by IU on March 15th that stated IU would be online for the remainder of the semester due to a new disease called COVID-19. This also meant that all students who lived on campus had to move out immediately. Professors only had a few weeks to restructure all of their classes and make sure they could be done on zoom. This was not an easy task, but they pulled it together the best they could. While they did find ways to restructure their classes so they could operate online many professors like Neal Moore didn’t think it was nearly as effective as in-person teaching. “ There’s still no replacement for being in the classroom and being able to interact in a personal way with students,” says Moore.
This lack of in person interaction has negatively impacted many student’s mental health. Most students still wake up each day and do zoom classes without seeing anyone in person all day. Morrow says that her days are like this and it is quite exhausting and that she misses being in actual class. She will be graduating this May so the last in person class she had was last March. Other students have gotten the opportunity to take small in person classes since August of 2020, but they have all be limited in size.
IU has taken numerous steps to combat the spread of COVID-19 on all of its campuses since last March. IU has implemented mandatory mitigation testing for all of its students to monitor the spread. If a student who lives on campus is found to be positive, then they are given the choice to quarantine at Ashton residence hall on campus or go home for the duration of the quarantine. In addition to testing IU has implemented a mandatory mask policy and they have even completely restructured their dining halls to safely accommodate to the pandemic. IU has also rearranged class times to make sure there aren’t a lot of in person classes near one another that get out at the same time. This cuts back on the chance that students would be crowded in the halls and therefore it cuts back on potential points of contact. Students themselves have also tried to limit their exposure to others as much as possible. IU Senior Cynthia Robertson talked about how she doesn’t go out nearly as much as she used to.
“Now I feel like I need to have a purpose when I go out. I can only go to certain places. If I don’t need to go out, then I won’t go out. So, I miss being able to go out and just do whatever without having to make sure it’s a need,” says Robertson.
This year has been hard for everyone for so many reasons. Now that the vaccine is becoming available many IU students are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. IU will be having fully in person classes starting the fall 2021 semester.
