Being a First-Year Graduate Student During COVID-19
We are at the halfway point of what is without a doubt the most unique semester of all time.
The start of a new school year is always fun. Making new friends in classes, seeing old friends in classes, campus life resurrecting and the transition to fall are consistent characteristics of the start of the school year, except for this year.
It is almost like a guessing game. Instead of putting names to faces (which is enough of a challenge in itself), we are tasked with putting names to masks. For some graduate students, this is no issue as this is year number five at Syracuse University. For others, this is a whole new world, a foreign campus with unknown peers all proceeding with caution and having no idea what to expect. In many ways, these feelings of unknown and being somewhat lost (I was carrying a campus map around with me for the first week) are reminiscent of being a freshman in college.
How does one socialize in a socially distanced world? The circles and tents in the quad make for a nice place to meet and make new friends, but there certainly is a learning curve to coronavirus college. Meet and greets have been effective, bringing people together without causing COVID breakouts. There is something to say about gathering under a tent or sitting in a spray-painted circle. The effort is there campus wide.
Faculty and stuff have been as accommodating as one could imagine. From starting the graduate program over the summer on Zoom to these first few weeks, both students and professors have been overcoming obstacles together.
Having to deal with who can or cannot hear the video playing over Zoom, whose video is not working, the students in the classroom and the professor share a bond over the fact that each party is trying. The effort is there. They want to make it work, giving each other the patience necessary to push forward through all obstacles. There is somewhat of a bonding experience over the technological challenges of modern education.
The graduate experience has been interesting, as we can all attest to. Despite all of this, life still somewhat feels normal at times. Emails come in what feels like every hour on the hour with new opportunities and information on how to get involved somewhere on campus. There are fall sports happening. The ACC is in session. The line at the Chipotle on Marshall street is out the door constantly. There are many characteristics that make Syracuse feel like a normal college town.
Three months into the graduate experience at Syracuse feels like a boxing match. The two fighters are taking it slow, round by round, feeling each other out before deciding how they are going to proceed. Who will the winner be? The protocols put in place by the University have been effective so far, and communication between administration and students has been direct and transparent.
This semester is full of unknown, as much as the COVID era has been. One thing is for sure: class is in session. The excitement we all felt when we received our acceptance letters was because we wanted to be here at Syracuse, and at Syracuse we are.
