Remember March? That time when college students were told to pack up and leave campus—saying goodbye to their dorms, professors, and friends—and to prepare for remote learning for who knows how long? Remember this summer? When the deadline for the fall semester was fast approaching and one college administration told their students to "emotionally prepare" for COVID-19 deaths on campus? Welp, for better or for worse, school's back in session.
According to a report by the CDC released Tuesday, COVID-19 cases surged nationally among 18-to-22-year-olds between August 2nd and September 5th. And while most schools are offering up resources like quarantine dorms and hybrid learning, some schools, like the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, saw a terrifying spike of cases at the beginning of the semester and sent everyone home. It's... a lot. And all of this is happening while students are just trying to actually *get* through college relatively unscathed with solid grades, good memories, and a job offer upon graduation. Oh yeah, and the least amount of soul-crushing debt as possible.
So, WTF is it actually like to be a college student right now? Cosmopolitan chatted with four current students living and learning in the midst of campus-wide COVID-19 outbreaks.
“I could name very few people who didn’t get it.”
As President of Kappa Kappa Gamma at the University of Iowa, I arrived on campus Aug. 17th for recruitment. On Aug. 27th, my second week on campus, I was sent home to quarantine because I tested positive for COVID-19.
I live in the house with 50 other girls. Everyone I knew in Greek life got it just because of the nature of the house and being exposed to it. All of the cases in our house showed up within days of each other—because our COVID-19 safety plan states that everyone who had been exposed get tested. If you’re positive you have to go home. So my Dad drove five hours from Indianapolis where my family lives and picked me up to go home for the 14-day period. He’s high-risk so I was wearing a face shield and my mask the entire car ride. But no one in my family ended up getting sick from me, which I’m so grateful for.
Our sorority house had a smaller number of cases compared to other houses on campus. Chi Omega is down the street from us and they sent everyone home who was living in the house. The house is now closed for the entire year, but not because they were forced to. A lot of the members just weren’t feeling comfortable after the outbreak and wanted to break their lease.
My symptoms were pretty severe with three days of fevers over 100 degrees. I never lost my sense of taste or smell but the exhaustion wasn’t something I was prepared for just because I was the one thinking, “Oh my immune system is really strong. I’m not going to get it and even if I get it I’m not going to get symptoms.” My professors have all been very understanding, but I never thought it would be as hard as it was.
On top of me actually having the coronavirus, those first two weeks after classes everything was just super chaotic. For a while our campus seemed like it was at least in the top three for COVID-19 cases on college campuses in the country. And especially for our size, that’s kind of unbelievable compared to a school like ‘Bama. But now, we’re about...what? A month and a half in? Things have really settled on our campus at least. I don’t know any students who still have it, but I could name very few people who didn’t get it during that period.—Cami Poulsen, 20, University of Iowa
“We’re paying too much right now for what we’re being given.”
I’m only a freshman at the University of South Carolina and had zero expectations coming into the school year because I didn’t want to get my hopes up for having a normal year. But now everyone has their own COVID-19 story. There are the students who say, “Well, I’ve had it before. I have the antibodies,” or the people who know someone who got sick. But there was a two-week span here where we had maybe up to 1,200 cases. There was media everywhere, all throughout Greek village where we were rushing our sororities. Some houses have gotten suspended, and students were lined up for hours trying to get tests. It didn’t look good.
If you test positive you have to go to a dorm called Bates. You’re all alone and bring everything you can in one bag for two week. You can’t get UberEats or GrubHub and they leave a cardboard box of food for the two weeks outside of your door. And you have to pay the school $200 and they don’t let you leave. It’s pretty intense. One of my friends was in Bates earlier. She had to get to the tuition office in-person to pay off a bill but obviously, she couldn’t go outside. So they logged her out of our website where we get all of our homework assignments and she couldn’t complete any of them. Our professor was like, “I don’t care, you’re not getting any points for any of the quizzes and homework you missed.” It’s not okay.
This is probably wrong of me to say, but, well, when I had COVID-19 back in July it was mild. Like, I just couldn’t taste or smell. I paid $150 for an antibodies blood test and I do have them. I know everything is up in the air with antibodies but, honestly, I’m not worried. Yeah that might sound bad but, I feel that being so young we are at an advantage so I’m trying to not be fearful. I’m obviously still taking precautions and wearing a mask, washing my hands, social distancing, all of that. Plus, everything is very regulated in the libraries, dining halls, and the bars downtown.
The rule is that you wear your mask in all your classes and you can take it down to drink water. If you’re not complying you can get written up. In the library, I was sitting with my friend who pulled her mask down to talk to me and she has a $40 fine now. Even so, I don’t think the school really prepared us for this.
We’re paying too much right now for what we’re being given. Dining halls are charging us for water because they don’t want us using the fountains and you’re only allowed to sit there for fifteen minutes. If you need tutoring, your tutor sits across from you with a glass shield and they tutor you with the paper facing them so nothing makes sense. I’m a very visual learner and it’s easy for me to get distracted with asynchronous learning. You have to make reservations for our brand new gym facilities and we’re only allowed to go to one football game this year—something a lot of us chose to attend this school to do. But they don’t care, they have our money.
This does feel like the new normal. Realizing that this isn’t normal is kind of funny because everyone’s gotten used to it. Carrying a mask is like carrying a phone. But I would rather still pay the money we paid for this school year and just have everything be totally open and available to us than what we’re getting now. I just want it back.—Katie Langan, 18, University of South Carolina
"You really know who your real friends are this year."
Back in August there was this huge party on the quad with all of these freshmen. It made the news at Syracuse University and everyone was super upset about it. We all really, really want to be here and for such a large school, everyone is doing their part and wearing masks and social distancing.
It’s almost October and we’re still here, but there is that lingering anxiety like, “Is this too good to be true?” I’m still overwhelmingly grateful to be here at all—even though things are definitely not what I expected. Syracuse is pretty lucky right now compared to other schools because we have only, like, 10 cases.
This year I’m living in the dorms in a split double. I take most of my classes online in my dorm room—where I also definitely make most of my food (with contraband appliances). It’s great from a privacy standpoint but the reality is that if my roommate gets COVID-19, I would also probably get it because we’re living in the same space. We’re very transparent with each other about who we’re spending time with—which is not the most natural thing. Thankfully we have a lot of mutual friends so we run in the same circles anyways but there are a few people I hang out with outside of that circle.
A tricky thing with us has been overnight guests. I’ve been dating my boyfriend for two weeks and he lives in a different dorm. He’s in my “bubble," so I don’t see an issue with him coming over and spending the night. I don’t think it’s any different than me going over to his dorm, but that’s not necessarily her opinion. There’s been conflict with that but right now our plan is just that she’s not around when he’s over because that makes her nervous.
Right now it’s best to be safe but also you can’t live your life like, totally alone. You have to let yourself see your friends and do things that are fun to keep yourself sane. It’s a lot of hoping that everyone’s getting tested and generally staying smart. With dating and being in a new relationship, there’s not much in terms of going out or really anything from that perspective.
On the one hand, we can’t go do all of those fun things together but on the other hand we’re spending a lot more genuine time together and connecting that way. And that’s been true about my friendships here too. You really know who your real friends are this year. Who else is going to want to just sit outside with you for two hours and like...talk? —Sydney Bergan, 19, Syracuse University
“I couldn’t justify my sorority dues this year.”
I live off-campus in an apartment and if I didn’t have this living situation, I think I would have taken a gap year like a lot of my friends. But because I don’t live on the grounds of the University of Virginia, I don’t get the same benefits and care that the rest of the student body does who live in the dorms. That’s frustrated me the most about the school’s handling of this. They’ve made a very clear distinction between those of us who live off campus and those who live on campus.
Greek life has been shut down on campus, and I actually dropped my sorority this year. Just because we don’t get to live in the house until third-year and even though our dues went down from $1,000 a semester to $500 this year, it’s still such a substantial amount of money. I mean, considering all we’re going to be doing is Zoom calls for chapter meetings I didn’t feel comfortable asking my parents for that money. And I couldn’t justify paying that myself either.
I mean, I’m still planning on probably getting COVID-19, especially with the rise of cases on our campus. They're mostly coming from the freshmen dorms. But just strictly based off of my surroundings and the fact that I’m in an apartment and at college, I’m probably going to get it. I’ve missed it narrowly like six times. My apartment has a whole chart full of tally marks with the times we should’ve tested positive, but didn’t. That's fun to look at.—Lila Murphy, 19, University of Virginia
Sarah is the associate lifestyle editor at Cosmopolitan where she covers food, home, health, career...basically all the things you love to love — follow her on Instagram.
