When I left for Florida to begin my senior spring break, the coronavirus was in the news. It obviously was not concerning enough to the vast majority of us to prevent us from going on our respective trips, be it with PLA or otherwise. But it became clear after a few days that the situation was escalating very quickly, and before I knew it I was hearing that it was very likely that we were going to have at least some time off from in-person classes. At first, I figured we’d be off for a week, maybe two, in order to keep the diaspora of spring breakers from returning to their crowded lecture halls.
So when the announcement came that classes were (at the time) moving remotely until April 3rd, and that residence halls were closing, it was a pretty big surprise. We had been talking extensively with other student governments, and this was (again, at the time) one of the strongest reactions by a university, at least in the Big Ten. Our planned day at the beach became hunkering down in the living room where we were staying, conferencing with other members of UPUA and fielding a massive influx of emails from students and administrators alike. We spent hours responding, directing students to resources the best we could, and conveying student concerns and demands to administrators; definitely not how I foresaw spending one of my days of spring break.
Fast forward to now, and our senior year as we knew it is over. Instead of spending April celebrating the end of my time in student government, the end of my thesis, and the end of my time at Penn State with my friends, I’ll be spending it at home. And these concerns are trivial when compared to the ramifications of the coronavirus to those who contract it, or to those that will be negatively affected by the cracks in our health care system that is not ready for this crisis.
I know every senior at Penn State is in the same boat as me, and the solidarity among the senior class has been one of the few positive things to come of the coronavirus situation. Virtual happy hours with good friends that I’ll see who-knows-when have kept the social isolation manageable, and have allowed us to keep things in perspective. As I seek to find my routine at Zoom University, and spend my final days at college without the usual closing ceremony, I guess you have to find the fun and the comfort when and where you can get it.
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