Three perspectives on the COVID-19 quarantine
Erica Bennett: From dorm life to the parents’ house
When I received the email saying that classes would remain online for the remainder of the semester, I initially wasn’t too worried about my classes. My first thought was, “Oh my god, how am I going to fit two separate rooms into one?!“ I had a lot of stuff in my dorm room, and only 2 hours to move it all out.
Luckily, my mom and I were able to move everything in under an hour. The part that took the longest was the drive.
After the actual “moving“ portion of my acclimation back home ended, I realized just how different, stressful and challenging working and learning from home would be.
For starters, I relate being home to a break. Home is where I go to relax and get away from school. So having to work and learn here is almost futile, and having to find the energy to do any work is even more impossible.
There are so many distractions. The TV, a younger sibling, another college student also learning and practicing, dogs barking and other things. If I were on campus and distractions arose, I could easily leave and go to a study room, computer lab or a practice room. Here, I can’t really go anywhere.
Practicing is also difficult. I always have an audience when I practice at home. At school, I have the ability to go practice whenever I want for however long I want, even if I decide to rehearse at midnight for 3 hours.
When living at home, there’s an “acceptable“ time to do things. On campus, it’s not weird for students to work and study during odd hours. While I was on campus, I could sleep till class or work, go to my classes, take a nap here and there, do my assignments, work on things late at night, go to rehearsals and practice on my own at anytime I wanted. Here, I have to work around other factors that I didn’t have on campus.
Don’t get me wrong, I do love being home and being around my family. There are definitely perks for being home, like good food, not having to pay $3.25 to do laundry, my dogs, better WiFi and small things here and there; but I do have to admit that there are also perks of living on campus that help me with my studies more.
Noelle Kriegel: A commuter, living with parents
As someone who hasn’t had to deal with the stress of moving, I thought that isolating at home would be easy. I don’t consider myself a “social” person, I spent enough time isolating in the Student Media office back on campus.
But following the updates, not only as a News Editor but as a student, made my heart drop as USC Aiken decided to move to remote learning.
I never made the decision to live at home when I first started USCA, my parents made that decision for me, reasoning that a teenager is safest at home (probably true).
So, bringing college back to my house wasn’t a difficult adjustment initially. I did online high school, so I was used to having a space and time to do academic work. My learning style was independent and I didn’t rely on on-campus resources that much, I was just used to doing school on my own.
As classes began to get more difficult, I realized I needed more help than I was proud to admit. My learning style just wasn’t as compatible with college coursework.
Beyond the difficulties of coursework, I had started making close friends, especially over the summer. Joining Pacer Times and spending hours locked away in an office, not alone, but with some of my closest friends impacted me in an unexpected way.
When we moved to remote learning, I didn’t worry about moving out of dorms, I was worried about almost all of my academic materials (and a blanket!) I had left in the office. I had grown accustomed to my little space. I spent easily seven hours in that room doing work, talking and assignments — surrounded by people.
But beyond an environment change, I became painfully aware within the first few days of the remote adjustment that I had become dependent on those little social interactions outside of my coworkers: Passing the commuter lounge and waving to friends, bumping into people in the hallway, hugging an old friend and just feeling like everything was the way it was supposed to be.
It has been rough, to say the least. I love being around my brother more (sometimes), I get to see my dad more often with him doing virtual clinic, and my mom and I spend our time blearily greeting each other as we sync up our nap schedules.
But I miss my friends, painfully so. I miss my schedule, my professors and I miss campus. Home isn’t where my heart is, it belongs at USCA.
Cecilia Maddox: A married commuter
Although the extended spring break and subsequent social distancing practices have offered my husband and me a chance to spend time together, more time is not always a good time.
Don’t get me wrong, I love him to death. He’s my best friend and over the last four years I have had zero reservations or regrets about marrying him. However, at this point it has been proven to me that if distance makes the heart grow fonder, then the opposite makes the heart want to rip out its hair.
There are positives and negatives to the situation, of course. We have spent more time cooking and have kept our house almost immaculate for the last month. We have also been getting at least 8 hours of sleep a night, which has improved our moods. Unfortunately, it seems that sitting in the same room for 16 hours is not at all kosher.
To combat that, we have started spending a few hours each day in different rooms or on the porch, since it has been nice outside. It helps a lot and when we do come together and hang out, we are able to enjoy the time.
As far as schoolwork goes, nothing has changed for Cole. As a business major who is in the palmetto college for accounting, almost all of his classes were online anyway. He’s a self-motivated, introverted learner who is better off teaching himself the material, which is part of why he chose this program.
As for me, I am an aurel and oral learner, which means that I primarily learn through discussion. Needless to say, my online college experience is not very enjoyable. Luckily, I have completed all my music performance coursework, so none of my courses have been compromised by distance learning, but understanding Shakespeare doesn’t get any easier when you don’t have in-class discussions.
This is my last semester and I am supposed to graduate in May, so it’s not as though I am looking forward to everything going back to normal in a few months. After I graduate, nothing in my life will fit the normal I am used to. I suppose this is just life’s way of showing me that there’s nothing wrong with change and it will always happen, even when you least expect it.
