Full of Excitement or Flushed with Concern by Return to Campus?

Sophie Davenport, Growl Editor

We are back on campus! After a long year of virtual learning, we are finally able to be back sitting in lecture halls and classrooms. After a year of strict social distancing and spending most of our days alone or inside we can finally begin to hang out with friends and make new ones. That is what many students are most excited for this semester. Making new friends! 

However, COVID still exists. Wearing your mask, washing your hands, and following campus health guidelines will prevent COVID cases from rising. And that is what most students are most concerned about this semester. The rise of COVID cases. 

Chris Adams, a freshman majoring in Computer Science from Stroudsburg, is excited for in-person classes and the new environment of being in college. Adams is concerned that students aren’t following university COVID mandates and online classes will be the result. 

Rose Ward and Rachel Florio, both juniors and Deaf and Early Elementary majors are excited to meet new people and simply be back on campus this semester. Although all their classes are online, due to professors living out of state, the concern of not being prepared, studying, and classes being harder are on both their minds. 

Lizzy Garnel, a senior majoring in Communication studies from Middleburg is excited to graduate this year in a more “normal” setting than her predecessors. What concerns Garnel is COVID, and its effects on the university and local community. Knowing this firsthand, having worked in a long-term care facility. 

Nick Sorkine, a junior majoring in Physiology from Mountaintop is looking forward to knowing that his grades will be solid after the first week of classes. Sorkine is most concerned about a rise in COVID cases and feels the university can do more to prevent COVID. Sorkine mentioned how lecture halls allow no social distancing and when leaving classes students pour out of the classroom where social distancing is almost impossible. 

Brielle, a junior majoring in Environmental, Geographical, and Geological Sciences is excited about in-person classes and seeing friends and professors again. Brielle is concerned, like most, of the rise in COVID cases. Due to her major is it important that in-person classes continue, needing to be hands-on with her research. 

We all want to enjoy this semester, making new friends and catching up with old ones. But none of us can forget, and most haven’t, that COVID is still alive. If we continue to follow campus policies regarding covid we can enjoy this semester!