by Ashley Lucas
Last week of classes. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that I am about to finish my junior year of college. Other times I feel like I have been at it forever and it is just never-ending. I can say that I never expected to have to spend half a semester doing my classes online from home because of a worldwide pandemic. I haven’t decided yet how I feel about the experience, but I know that I could have never enrolled in an online school. I need the human interaction with my peers and professors that in-person lectures bring. So, I guess I can say that I am thankful to be healthy and safe during this pandemic, but I hope to never have to do college like this again.
This last week of classes has been something else. It has been the busiest week of my semester, and dare I say college career. Between writing papers, finishing projects, preparing for finals, and working my week has been jammed pack. I am doing work from the time my eyes open in the morning until the time that I shut them at night. I have been in my room so much that my family became concerned and asked me about it one night at the dinner table.
No matter how busy I have been, I have been really fortunate this semester to have such understanding and flexible professors. I know that in my experience they are doing what they can to lessen the stress that is piling up from the combination of transitioning to online classes and having to quarantine. In just a few weeks our lives were really flipped upside down and I am thankful to have professors who understand that and are trying to work with me and not against me.
Writing these posts has been a really good way for me to sort through my feelings since being quarantined. Putting them on paper has been really therapeutic for me. I feel like it is really important at times like these for everyone to find one thing that makes them feel better, whatever it might be. I have found that I have to let myself feel how I feel and then backtrack to figure out where that feeling was coming from. I still miss my friends and family, but I know that the best way to keep us all safe is to just stay home for now. This will be over eventually.