STUDENTS AT BARRY UNIVERSITY SPEAK OUT ABOUT THE “NEW NORMAL” AND THEIR COLLEGE EXPERIENCE POST COVID-19
By Blaine Montgomery
As many students across the country enter their fourth week of classes, many have been adjusting to the new college experience of in-person classes in the midst of COVID. I had the opportunity to speak with two Barry students about how their experiences have been attending Barry while things return back to normal or not-so-normal.
Junior, Koley Carter expressed how she has seen a lot more students trying to be social and involved on campus.
She shared that the “Office of Student Life has been working really hard to make campus active and fun for students, and now they’ve actually had high turnout numbers at most of their events.”
Likewise, with Koley’s experience, students have really made efforts to get back in action again to gain back time and memories lost as college students.
While Barry has been trying to return back to normal, there have been many new changes and restrictions that have come because of the pandemic in order to ensure campus public safety. From a student's perspective, this has made their experience better but for some, it has hindered it.
Senior Christopher Mitchell had a different perspective than Miss.Carter.
“Campus has felt very divided and I've felt less involved than I did my previous years at Barry.” -Christopher Mitchell
As a senior, this student has seen Barry’s campus in many phases since a lot has happened within the last couple of years. From Chris’ perspective, as someone who once met other students, friends, and experienced classes before the pandemic; campus life would feel less connected and divided.
Koley Carter also shared that Barry’s higher-ups in staff have put a lot of restrictions on how the Campus Activity Board can plan and execute their events, essentially making it harder to really provide a good time for students.
Many students were once freshman and are now juniors, who completely lossed college experiences from the sophomore year, or once juniors in highschool and are now freshmans in college. The valuable time, experiences, memories, and knowledge students lost due to the pandemic outbreak is some time they can never get back. For some students, they feel as if they skipped out on a whole year of their college experience and are having a hard time coping with the changes and some are just trying to make the best out of the “new normal.”