Look Back at How Pandemic Affected TAMUG Students    

TAMUG students who were freshmen in Spring 2020 are now entering their senior year. Since 2020, TAMUG students have watched the COVID-19 pandemic shake the world and uproot our notions of normality. The student generations of the 20’s will live with memories of cities shutting down, overpacked hospitals, store shelves pillaged amid growing panic, schools struggling through seclusion, fear spreading rampantly on social media, and streets emptying as the beginning of spring became the start of a quarantine.

Students and staff of the university all underwent the struggles of quarantined life. Many incoming students and students who expected to return to the campus they know instead spent whole semesters in seclusion. Social distancing, wearing masks, COVID testing, economic strain, and other pandemic regulations and hardships were swiftly ingrained into our lives, while remote learning became more routine for students than traditional classes. 

The Nautilus decided to catch up with a couple of students and a recent graduate to discuss their experiences with quarantine life, remote learning, and their thoughts looking back on it all.

The quarantine and remote learning experiences throughout TAMUG were highly complex. They differed from major to major and individual to individual, as do different students’ reflections and perspectives looking back now on their socially distanced semesters.

A MARB student experience

One Marine Biology (MARB) student recalled multiple negative impacts they experienced through quarantined life and extensive remote learning. “It felt very academically unorganized for me,” stated the MARB student. “There was very little communication between professors and students in my classes.” Additionally, the student described that throughout their remote semester, they faced an abundance of obstacles, uncertainty, as well as complications with their classes and curriculum.

The MARB student described their semester as very isolating, and diminishing to their social life. They“generally didn’t like the way things were handled” concerning matters of quarantine regulations and procedures, and that they perceived an “unnecessary” spread of panic, in reaction to something that could have been approached more collectedly. Looking back on these semesters, this student did not ascribe to the perspective of having “survived” a pandemic, but rather acknowledged the many crushing hardships, struggles, and changes shared and endured across the student population and the world.

A MARE student experience

In contrast, there are students that recall remote learning in a more positive light. A Marine Engineering (MARE) student shared that they enjoyed and benefited from remote learning, stating they felt more at ease and organized academically especially in regards to attending classes, saved commute time, and were able to maneuver between remote and in-person attendance when available, without much hindrance to their social life. “It was just so much nicer and easier to manage my schedule from home, and I could switch between my learning strategies for lectures,” the MARE student stated.

Some words from a MAST Graduate

Many students who underwent quarantined semesters and remote learning have now graduated. A MAST student from class of 2021, who wished to remain anonymous, shared their experience and perspective looking back on their time of seclusion while enrolled in TAMUG, demonstrating just how complex one student’s experience can become when a campus’s sense of normality shifts so suddenly. Originally a transfer student, this graduate explained that at first their transition to a new campus and curriculum had a chance to slow down, but it later became strange and even frustrating to adapt to a distanced way of navigating through school, though they “adapted eventually”.  

The graduate proceeded to share that the solitude of quarantine impacted their activity level and made it more difficult for them to become involved in an area that was new to them. But contrastingly, they didn’t notice any negative impact on their grades as a result of remote learning and that it was in fact easier to manage their schedule between home and school throughout their quarantined semester. 

However, the more painful effects of quarantine manifested themselves far more in aspects of social life and activity in this graduate’s experience, particularly as delays to beginning a social circle during their transfer. Feelings of “emptiness and real isolation” are among the memories the graduate recalls vividly; “losing the enrichment that comes with in-person experiences”.  

Retrospectively, the graduate views their experience during the quarantine as having contributed to strengthening their personal resilience, and to a desire for more life experiences. When asked about their thoughts on the perspective of surviving the pandemic, the graduate said “I believe the events and hardship of the quarantine taught me the importance of the way we react to things, the way we react to stress and tragedy. We can view our experiences as something that damaged us, or made us more resilient to things we go through.”