(Off) Campus Life
The landmark Tommy Trojan statue towers over an empty plaza on the campus of the University of Southern California, void of students and teachers since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
Photo courtesy of KTLA-TV
AT THE END OF A TUMULTUOUS SCHOOL YEAR, STUDENTS WHO THOUGHT MAKING IT TO COLLEGE WAS A DREAM COME TRUE NOW CONTEMPLATE NIGHTMARE SCENARIOS
By Kate Sequeira
A few miles south of downtown Los Angeles, the University of Southern California’s University Park Campus is silent. Missing is the constant thump of skateboard wheels hitting cracks in the bricks that line Trousdale Parkway. Gone are the echoes of “fight on!” that ring when campus tour groups arrive at the Tommy Trojan statue.
As the 2020 school year comes to an end, nearly everyone from the student body of 48,500 is already back home. Classes moved online in early March to limit the spread of the coronavirus, and only those employees vital to daily operations remain on campus.
“It’s, oh my God, me and that girl are not gonna laugh about the professor’s stupid jokes anymore, and stuff like that,” said Paulina Nuñez, a senior at USC who is graduating with a degree in health promotion and disease prevention studies. “These things, I guess, are weird to think about, especially now when I go and run on campus and all the buildings are closed … I'll never walk into (Taper Hall) again or (the Von KleinSmid Center) or have to use the dirty VKC bathrooms.”
It’s pretty much the same story on campuses across the country: Students are missing out on end-of-year traditions. Instead, they’re home navigating remote learning. They are also dealing with the emerging reality that most schools won’t return to in-class teaching this fall. Already, the California State University has told several hundred thousand students that they will continue online learning.
The pandemic has cut short an experience that took years of studying and support from family to attain. COVID-19 has raised the threat of financial insecurity and ushered in doubts about when and how universities will recover.
And for seniors, it has stolen the opportunity to bring years of toil to an official close as commencements are pushed online or to uncertain future dates.
Andrea Roca, senior at CSU Northridge
The value of being there
Scarly, who started at UCLA in September 2018 after graduating from Moreno Valley College, will never step foot on campus again as a student. (Scarly is undocumented and requested that palabra. not use her full name.) She will miss the brief and spontaneous conversations with coworkers, classmates or professors that she’d bump into on her way to class.
“Those relationships, those conversations I feel like build you in ways that it's very unique being physically on campus,” she said.
Scarly, who is a first-generation college student -- the first in her family to earn a college degree -- is frustrated she won’t walk in a graduation ceremony this month. She’d planned to dedicate the moment to her family.
“UCLA, in general, was already a dream school of mine,” she said. “But for my parents and for my nieces and my brother and my sister, I want them to see me have that moment and it's like a problem for them. So not having that moment, it feels it feels like I didn't accomplish much.”
Similarly, Andrea Roca, 21, who graduates from Cal State Northridge in a few days, said the end of her college journey feels surreal. She’s completing final exams at home. The university promised it will host in-person celebrations in the future, but Roca said it won’t be the same because many students won’t be able to return. Many will be a distance from school and have work or other responsibilities to deal with.
“It's my last semester at CSUN and I’m kind of sad … I won't be able to take my last exam and then be able to walk out of the classroom, take a last look at my college, maybe go to my building and say bye to it,” Roca said. “I'm gonna finish my last exam at home and just have a little like woohoo, and then nothing much.”
German Olvera, junior at CSU Fullerton
OK, now what?
In their remote, isolated circumstances, many students are reflecting on what the college experience means to them. It remains unclear if undergrads will return to campus or continue learning online in the fall.
German Olvera, 21, no longer wakes up at 4:30 a.m. twice a week to make the commute from South Central Los Angeles to arrive at CSU Fullerton by 6 a.m. He’s thankful for the respite, but he’s frustrated by how the shift to online classes has affected his ability to learn. He’s a recent transfer to CSU Fullerton, and said he feels cheated of valuable face time with professors and use of the campus facilities.
“I feel like I’ve learned half of what I learned in the first part of my semester,” Olvera said. “I feel like my learning really got turned down. I'm gonna be relieved when my last final … is done.”
Olvera transferred from East Los Angeles College in May. His in-person experience at the university will possibly be reduced again, as the CSU system now says fall classes at Fullerton will continue online in the coming fall semester.
Olvera said he briefly thought about taking a gap semester, worried that he wouldn’t get as much from remote learning.
“All my classes are very crucial, especially right now that I’m taking the two accounting classes for my major and just the fact that I'm not there in person and I'm not able to ask questions,” said Olvera, who is majoring in business administration. “It gets me a little nervous about the future when I actually get into my career, just because I feel like I'm not learning as (much) as I was in-person.”
Luis Valente, sophomore at UCSD
Lower academic expectations
For UC San Diego sophomore Luis Valente, 20, it’s been hard staying motivated. He was optimistic that he would be able to handle his four classes and his work and club activities. Now near the end, he’s dropped one class and shifted another to “pass/not pass.”
“I find myself slacking a lot more often,” Valente said. “And I don't know if it's because I came back home … or if it's because the whole online learning thing — honestly, I'm pretty sure it's a factor of two.”
Valente has traveled back and forth between his home in South Gate and his rented house near UCSD since the beginning of spring quarter, unable to settle in a place and wait out stay-at-home orders. At home he is surrounded by family and finds it difficult to concentrate on studies. On campus it’s lonely and isolating. Valente expects to be in San Diego for finals, since the environment will allow him to study and work without interruption from his parents or his brother.
“My parents, they don't understand,” Valente said. “And then they try really hard to understand. But like, they came into the kitchen the other day because that's where I was working from. They weren't being loud, but like, they were a bit distracting for me to work and focus when I was on the clock.”
Sandra Ramales, junior at CSU San Marcos
The downside of being home
For Sandra Ramales, 21, the effects of the coronavirus pandemic have altered more than just her campus life. She commutes from her home in Encinitas in San Diego County to nearby CSU San Marcos. Ramales also volunteers at a tutoring center and works at a middle school near her home.
But there’s a downside to now being home, all the time.
“It's actually kind of suffocating,” Ramales said. “Most of the day or the week I wasn't even at home. I was at school and I was at work and then I was volunteering at a tutoring center. So this whole thing kind of just got me inside the house and it's hard because I was so used to being out.”
Though her dad, aunt and brother still go out to work, her mom and younger brother are both home. Ramales attends her university classes in her room, away from the clamor of the household, and she is careful to let everyone know when she begins classes to avoid interruption.
“I’ve taken online classes before, but they weren't the same as this whole thing because the professors had their own way of doing it before,” Ramales said. Before “it definitely wasn’t with Zoom … But I’m honestly just happy that it's almost over because it's been incredibly stressful.”
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Kate Sequeira is a junior studying journalism at the University of Southern California. She is the editor-in-chief of the university's newspaper, the Daily Trojan.