Spring Semester During COVID-19
During the spring 2021 semester, the normally vibrant Mount Holyoke College was a ghost town. Walking across campus, you might’ve seen one or two other students also making the trek to the Dining Commons. We’d exchange our used plastic containers for new ones, get more food and return to our dorm rooms — the only place we were allowed to take off our masks or eat.
While around 250 million college students consider the four walls of the classroom their second home, the pandemic has resulted in a displacement of the regular learning process. The establishment of online schooling comes with a new set of rules and features, many of which consist of learning strategies for navigating remote learning. However, a number of students around the world, including myself, have found themselves questioning the efficacy and relevance of a lot of the in-person features being replicated online.
As the spring semester came around this January, colleges across the U.S. opened their campuses to students. These institutions each laid out their own plans to combat the coronavirus pandemic’s spread and usher in their students safely. However, many colleges have seen uncontrollable case numbers in just the first few weeks, reflecting their inadequate COVID-19 measures. In light of this, Mount Holyoke’s gradual reopening policies and COVID-19 measures have proven to be comparatively far more successful.
