What’s it like to be a freshman during a global pandemic? Most of us have wondered about it, but few of us have the experience of starting college with quite as much uncertainty as the high school seniors of 2020. The ever-rising number of COVID cases lurks behind the transition from home life to dorm life. “It’s a lot harder to meet people,” says Jenna Hall, a freshman here at Drury. She’s right. It’s hard to party when you have to stay six feet away from everyone. Though she is glad that “most people are being good about wearing masks.”

“I didn’t have any grand expectations,” Hall says, when asked how she thought college would go. But she does like that all of her classes, so far, are in-person. “It’s a whole lot better than sitting in a dorm room doing online classes all day.”  And the option to leave class if she doesn’t feel safe gives her a small sense of power in a powerless situation.

What about classes? Well, Hall touched on that as well; “I think that it’s been a little more difficult in classes because a lot of the interaction between students is no longer allowed.” Socializing is rough and “small groups are lackluster at best.”

While she targets these areas as harder to deal with, Hall is staying positive about the whole experience. “I think this pandemic has been a good teacher,” she says. Now she knows how to “pick up the pieces, move on, and stop dwelling” on what she may or may not have been able to do before. She’s doing what a lot of people are doing during quarantine—getting comfortable with herself.

“If I’m not optimistic, I’m not sure I’ll make it through the year.” Hall says what many of us are thinking. She’s been thinking of how the virus has impacted other schools, even in the surrounding area. “A lot of people on other campuses are having a worse time than I am, so I like to remind myself of how good I’ve got it.” She’s happy to be able to still make those in-person connections that others might not be able to right now, and she likes talking with her professors outside of class time.

“Unless some other traumatic event happens, college can’t get worse than it is now.” Hall’s positivity is infectious and her hope for a vaccine “sometime in late winter or early spring” along with the lifting of some restrictions makes the future look a little less dim.

Article by Cheyenne Heavener