SU Students Share Remote Experiences

By Chilekasi Adele

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – SU students have spent more time than usual looking at their computer screens this year, even with some in-person classes — but some students have been stuck with their computer screens and not on campus at all.

Senior Dara Jin stayed home all year, learning remotely from Pennsylvania. Jin, a Fourth-Year Architecture student, says she was too concerned about COVID-19 to return to campus.

“I kind of knew that people would, regardless of whatever implementations that the university put up, like people would still be meeting up with people, and like, I guess I was also afraid of being kind of like tempted or pressured into doing things like that,” Jin said.

Learning in a pandemic is hard for any student – and it’s even tougher when all your classes are online and in a different state, away from your classmates and friends. Sophomore
Marketing Management Major Katie Yerke returned home this semester and the transition was difficult for her.

“Group projects are really hard to do — just because, I’ll get assigned a group and I’ll have no idea who these people are, because I haven’t seen them in person,” said Yerke.

Not every student left campus though. Some remote students switched to on-campus, as the pandemic seemed to improve and vaccinations started. Freshman Alex Helmer came to campus this semester. Helmer, a Film Major in SU’s school of Visual and Performing Arts, says being in-person has actually been harder for him than when he was fully remote.

“I’ve definitely got — my workload is a lot more this semester and I’ve been a lot more stressed,” Helmer said.

SU says they may offer hybrid online and in-person classes in the future — but for now, it appears “Zoom University” is coming to an end.