By Allie Juarez
interactions through and post-pandemic
SAN MARCOS, Tx – With the semester ending and the holiday break right around the corner, students look back on their journey through the COVID-19 pandemic and their first semester back on campus.
When the COVID-19 pandemic took over the world, students were forced off campus and attended school through zoom, isolating students and limiting their interactions with their peers and teachers. Each student had a different experience with the pandemic, and while some students loved going to class online other students could not wait to be back in person.
For some students, like Reagan St. Peters, 21, political science major and soon to be Texas State University graduate, she thoroughly enjoyed going to school online and didn’t mind the lack of human interaction.
“When I first started going to school through zoom, I definitely wasn’t used to it, but now I would rather go to school online than in-person,” said St. Peters.
Now, in 2022, it has been almost three years since the switch from in-person classes to online, and this semester students were finally allowed to resume classes in-person. The pandemic made society accustomed to staying at home and getting tasks done on their own time. Now that the world has opened back up and school is now back in-person, students have to be on someone else’s time.
According to St. Peters her class attendance is sometimes an issue, “I’m used to going to class from my bedroom, so getting to class on time, or sometimes at all, is a problem.” Said St. Peters.
Although classes have resumed in-person, some professors still prefer to either hold class on zoom or make quizzes and tests available online. This type of back and forth between online and in-person is the direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Even though I have class in-person, I still get to do all of my work online, so that really helps me to keep up with my schoolwork,” said St. Peters.
Other students prefer going to class in-person due to the interaction and better learning experiences they gain. For students like Ciara Culleton, 21, Nursing student and upcoming graduate at Texas Tech University, online school severely hindered their learning and human interaction.
“Virtual learning was difficult enough as it is, but especially when it comes to a hands-on profession such as nursing, I wasn’t able to see any patients or interact with anybody.” She goes on to add, “I had to learn and practice all my skills at home, on pillows or dummies or something like that and record myself to practice and that was really hard because it wasn’t realistic at all” said Culleton.
Unfortunately, this is true for many students, even Justin Brestal, 22, an accounting student going through graduate school at Texas State University. Although accounting isn’t necessarily a hands-on profession, when it comes to going to school online, he lost the student to teacher interaction that was necessary for him to learn.
“COVID-19 made school extremely hard because all my classes were online and there were a ton of distractions, and it was very hard to have relationships with teachers and professors and friends” said Brestal. He goes on to add that he is, “much happier” now that he is back in person and is able to have those one-on-one relationships again.
The isolation students felt through the entirety of the pandemic was major but going back to school and being surrounded by people again is necessary.
The COVID-19 pandemic altered the way students, and humans in general, interact with each other forever. Pre-pandemic, quizzes and tests would never be allowed to be administered online or have the option to attend zoom from the comfort of a bed or at home. Weather it’s going to school, work or just to the grocery store, these post-pandemic interactions, however strange, is our new normal.
Post-pandemic interactions: Photo Story
When the Covid-19 pandemic struck in 2020, it forever altered the way we interact in our daily lives. The world essentially shut down forcing us as a society to adapt to the new world around us. We adapted by wearing masks, socially distancing, and using technology as a way to fill the human interaction void. Fast forward to almost three years later and the world has completely opened back up, but it is not the same as it was pre-pandemic.
The pandemic changed all of us in different ways, but if there is one thing we all learned it was the power to be by ourselves. None of us liked the extreme isolation we felt but having come out on the other side, I think it made us stronger as individuals. There is also something to be said about our adaptability as humans; as we adapted for the pandemic we also adapted back to normalcy, and although the pandemic did alter us significantly, in many ways the world
