When college went back to “normal” this year, they ignored the fact that they had a sophomore class of isolated, anxious, depressed kids. The freshmen have the usual orientation. Sophomores just adapted.
JM: The pandemic has severed countless human connections, quietly causing untold harm. Isolation is a major obstacle to the purpose of university education, because the “transformational purpose of higher education” depends on relationships, including peer relationships, such as As researchers Peter Felton and Leo M. Lambert point out in their book, “Education rich in relationships. ”
Bringing everyone together in one place obviously carries a risk of spreading the virus, but it also allows for methods of learning and mentoring that would be difficult to replicate in any other way. Tyler Burkhardt, a student at the University of Texas at Dallas (where my wife teaches and where I taught last year), told me that when he took classes remotely, he missed out on natural interactions. with friends of the same age. Online, he says, “there’s no network of people to keep interacting with after the classroom to keep that knowledge fresh and keep applying it.” As a result, he said, he retained less of what he had learned.
‘Learn as much as you can, and enjoy it as much as you can.’
Molly, Chicago: As an undergraduate student at a private institution, our course load is rigorous and academic requires discipline. We are also expected to receive internships and work to kick-start our careers. We were asked to do all of these things at a time of severe trauma. This is the cause of the mismanagement of Covid cases currently taking place at our school.
In many ways, I have become a much more disciplined student than I was before the pandemic, but I have to be at my pre-pandemic level. Many of my friends talk about having a much worse memory than before the pandemic, and many report exhaustion. Some have strayed too far from the experiences college students currently face. I would like to add some compassion.
JM: Nothing has been easy in the past two years: studying, teaching, raising children, working. College seems trivial in such a time. What’s the use of analyzing Milton’s lines when so many people are dying? I wish my students could see the 50 or 80 minutes we spend together as a refuge. The world’s pain and fear will not go away, but here we are, a community of learners, finding out what has mattered to people through the ages.
Molly, don’t lose hope. Learn as much as you can, and enjoy it as much as you can. The reality is that our society will need people like you and your peers who are capable, compassionate and disciplined. Tackling the long-term consequences of the pandemic, not to mention many other problems, will require all the wisdom and commitment we can muster. No, it won’t be easy to complete your studies under the current conditions and things are unlikely to get any easier after you graduate. But now you are in a position to become someone who will do many good things for the world. I know you can.
