By: Mason Erger
March 11th marked one year since Iowa State University first announced that classes would be online.
In the spring of 2020, Iowa State initially projected that classes would remain online for only a month when in reality, online classes would persist for the remainder of the spring semester and Furthermore into the following year. This means that we have spent over one year under COVID-19.
I interviewed ISU student Camden Jensen to ask what his opinions were at the time of the closure last year and how they have changed since then. He told me that at the time it didn’t really feel like some bad dream, just a rumor that the school would close. He remembers being particularly surprised about just how serious the pandemic ended up being when he went home for spring break only to find that a majority of his plans had been canceled and furthermore, that spring break didn’t end. On March 18th only one week after the first announcement, Iowa State University elected to go 100% online for the remainder of the semester directing all students and faculty to go home and clear out of all residence halls. Since then a lot has happened, we’ve adjusted to this new online world that we are in, but I couldn’t help but ask “do you think that the freshmen and the seniors feel cheated out of some of the most important years of their lives?”
Jensen had this to say: “I don’t think they know what they’re missing.” He believed that covid had impacted the schools so badly that most of the defining events of freshman and senior years had been entirely canceled. As a result, many of the students didn’t realize what they were missing out on. On the note of the freshman, I was curious as to whether or not the freshmen would adjust very well to an in-person school climate next year now that so many have become accustomed to online classes.
If covid has taught me anything it’s that we can make it through quite a lot, and while it may be difficult to readjust to yet another new climate, based on what I’ve seen so far I know that we can do it. As a freshman myself, I am somewhat uncertain as to what this new school year will bring, but based on the letter from president Wintersteen on March 12th I’d say that things are starting to look up.
