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Starting the Semester with Online Classes

By Marisa Seager

After being fortunate enough to return to in-person classes this past semester, I started to feel hopeful that we wouldn’t have to have online classes again. But, as we all know, here we are right back in online classes to start out the Spring semester. 

The plan is to only remain online for the first two weeks, following phased move ins, but I’m worried that things won’t go as planned. All we can really do at this point is stay safe ourselves and hope that our peers will do the same. I guess we’ll see what happens rather soon…

Between the emails about phased move ins and starting out online, I immediately had a pit in my stomach as it reminded me of when we first got sent home at the start of the pandemic. Although these plans have been set in place to keep us safe, I can’t help but feel like we are going to experience going completely online and possibly sent back home all over again.

For a while it seemed as if things had gotten better but as we all know, it’s started to get bad again with the new COVID variant, omicron. The mask mandate is still being enforced, vaccines and boosters are becoming mandated across schools including our own, and we’re taking what feels like another step backwards. 

When will this pandemic ever be over?  Will we ever return to normal – no masks, panic, and constant changing of plans? I really hope so and I’m sure you all do too.