By Meredith Lyverse
In March 2020, no one knew what to expect when Bellarmine officials announced all classes would be suspended for two weeks because of the Coronavirus. One year of isolation and staring at screens later, Bellarmine students and staff are sharing their thoughts on college life during a pandemic.
Sophomore Jon Michael Gaudin said he is much less motivated to go to school overall now that classes are online. “It never really got easy,” Gaudin said. “If it wasn’t something that I had to do, I probably wouldn’t do it.”
He said on a scale from 1 to 10, he gives this school year a 4.7 because he doesn’t like how Covid has taken away the sense of togetherness on campus.
“I remember my freshman year. You would walk out in the quad and there would always be some kind of event, just something going on,” Gaudin said. “There’s not as much of that anymore.”
On top of doing all his classes in his bedroom, Gaudian tested positive for Covid-19 in October. He said it was difficult not being able to leave his house.
“The hardest thing was getting used to being completely quarantined,” Gaudin said. “I was going stir crazy on top of having to focus on school.”
Tim Glasscock, professor and chair of the music department, said his experience is different from most professors because his classes depend on in-person performances.
“When you’re a music major, probably 40 to 50% of your classes are performing,” Glasscock said. “It really isn’t an acceptable thing to just say for this academic year no one gets to do an ensemble.”
Glasscock said Covid protocols take away from the experience of performing. Every student wears a mask, there are glass dividers between students, and tape marks where performers must stand 6 feet away from each other.
“You put a mask over everyone’s face, and now the sound is diffused and everyone’s an extra 4 feet away,” Glasscock said. “It’s just extremely difficult to ascertain where the sound is coming from.”
Glasscock said by the spring semester, students and staff were more comfortable navigating classes and work in a pandemic but the lack of activity on campus is isolating. “It’s a ghost town,” he said.
“People are not encouraged to be in their offices to keep from spreading the virus. It’s troublingly lonely to be on campus,” Glasscock said.
Senior Meagan Makuta has an optimistic attitude toward the school year despite it being her last one.
“It’s not Bellarmine’s fault this happened,” Makuta said. “I wish I got to do more senior stuff, but it is what it is.”
She said she adapted to online classes quickly by making sure she had a good space to do schoolwork.
“I’m not productive when I’m doing all my classes in my bed, so I have to do them from my desk,” Makuta said. “It helps me to have a separate space where I know I have to focus.”
Makuta said doing online school has given her new opportunities for work that she wouldn’t have had time to do with a normal class schedule. She has a co-op through UPS that she does from home.
“I can work from home, so I don’t have to worry about driving to the office every day,” Makuta said. “So that’s one plus side to this whole thing. It’s an opportunity that I probably wouldn’t have if things were normal.”
Makuta said she’s ready to leave school and enter the workforce full time but is very grateful the class of 2021 gets a graduation ceremony.
“I’m really glad we at least get to have an in-person graduation ceremony, even though I’m sure it’s going to have all the Covid protocols,” Makuta said. “That’s really all I wanted.”