Following the abrupt end to the spring semester due to COVID-19, none of us knew what to expect. At the time, I’m sure most of us disagreed with our schools, thinking we could have stayed on campus and tried to finish the year. And we certainly all hoped that we’d be back on campus in the fall- maybe we were even convinced that would be the case. But how could we be sure after we were all abruptly sent home as cases on colleges campuses around the country began to spike?
But as the summer progressed and the number of cases slowed, our hopes of returning to campus grew, only to come crashing when we got the news that the Fall 2020 semester would be online as well. As we settled into the new normal, I think we all began to just accept that this was the way it was going to be, and our dreams of returning to campus full-time would have to wait. But the question still remains: did our schools make the right decision?
It’s a complicated question. While many colleges have been able to implement in-person, hybrid models without significant outbreaks, many have struggled (all stats sourced from The New York Times). Within the first two weeks back on campus, the University of Notre Dame had more than 150 cases and classes were forced to go online. They’ve now had more than 700 cases in total. The University of Wisconsin-Madison reached 1400 cases within their first month on campus, and now has had more than 3000 confirmed cases. They remain on campus, with the plan to go fully remote after Thanksgiving.
Some colleges began in person, but were forced to abandon after a surge of infection rates. One example is Temple University in Philadelphia. They began in-person, went online for two weeks after cases began to appear, and then eventually went fully online when that did not stop the spread. By the end, they had more than 500 total cases on campus. More relevant to us in Baltimore is Towson University, which followed a similar schedule. Despite their best efforts to limit cases, 491 students and staff got sick and the university was forced to continue their semester online.
Even on campuses that are continuing in person, life is not the same: with masks required, smaller class sizes, and restrictions on everything from dining to seeing friends. The question raised is if this experience is worth the risks that the virus poses. Most students, I expect, would say yes. However, our schools, along with the health professionals they consulted with, decided that it was not, and I can’t fault them for it. The last thing universities want is for any of us to get sick with such a serious virus. We still don’t know what, if any, long-term consequences of this disease exist, so putting their students in that situation was not something they were comfortable with.
In the end, all we can do is hope that the number of cases around the country and in Baltimore continue to decline, and we are allowed back in the Spring. As of right now, our schools are planning on bringing us back, with all of the precautions they had set up for last semester. Of course, this could all change in a minute if infection rates spike in our city again.
I’m graduating in a few weeks, so no matter what happens, I won’t be in Baltimore in the spring. Having my last semester of college be online sucks- I’m never going to get the full senior year, on-campus experience that I’d been looking forward to. After three years of hard work, it’s such a disappointment to be stuck at home instead of with my friends in Baltimore. I hope that the rest of my fellow seniors don’t end up with the same let-down I’ve gotten stuck with, and that Baltimore’s colleges are able to have students there again in the spring. The hardest part, honestly, is knowing that the entire situation is out of our hands. For now, all we can do is keep our bags packed, wear our masks, and hope our schools reopen.
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