The pandemic has turned the world upside down, there is no question about that.
As a result, college students are having a hard time adjusting to this “new normal” with little to no face-to-face interaction — a crucial piece in the college experience.
Last spring, COVID-19 brought colleges to a sudden stall, along with side effects like anxiety or depression among a student population who had to learn the hard way how to navigate through the situation.
While it is easy to mostly focus on the back-then graduating seniors who had their long awaited graduation ceremonies ripped apart, it is the underclassmen and rising seniors who are now grappling with the worst of it.
With the epidemic in the United States picking up speed rather than stabilizing, many professors are now in the process of making the decision to instruct on-campus in the spring, keep their courses somewhat hybrid or fully teach through online learning.
But just as professors, students, too, are now in a limbo in terms of making their decision for the upcoming semester.
Students told The Oswegonian, in a previous opinion article, thatcampus feels even emptier than it did toward the beginning of the greatly downsized fall semester. Of course, this will result in the college losing funds; however, students’ mental and physical health should be put on the frontline right now.
Given the already dangerous common flu during the early weeks or even months of the spring semester, combined with COVID-19, this should make professors and universities think twice about allowing students to take their classes in-person and partake in otherwise routine activities in a remote model, which has proven to be successful in many ways up until now.
A full transition to online learning, however, could have devastating consequences for college students as many will have most of their collegiate experiences truncated by COVID-19. This could require counseling and other essential on-campus services to double-up on personnel in case of the unexpected, with all the unknowns that the pandemic has left in its trail up to this point.
Just to put this into perspective, what tools will senior student-athletes have at their disposal to help them navigate through the situation and grapple with the consequences of having their last seasons forcibly taken from them?
Of course, there are many layers to the developing situation, and it will require a joint effort from everyone. But the bottom line is that colleges should start planning ahead for a possible remote learning semester for the sake of students’ safety and put financial and personal interests behind them.
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