Class is Now in Session

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more

Today’s the first day of classes at Montclair State University. It’s where I’ve attended school for far too long for my tastes. That’s less a comment on the school itself than it is on the fact that I first enrolled in 2012 and that it’s now 2020. There were some fits and pauses along the way. You can thank a major change and mental health troubles for that. It’s been a hell of a slog. But I’m finally near the finish line. This is my last semester. 

It seems somewhat cruelly fitting that it’ll end this way. I’ve been thinking a lot about what Inigo Montoya says at the end of The Princess Bride. He says that he’s been in the revenge business for so long that he doesn’t know what he’ll do now that he’s cut down the man who killed his father.

I have no idea what’s in store for me on the other end of this semester. I had some idea of what the post-college game plan would be, and the pandemic’s largely thrown that out the window. The economy is tanking and the jobs market is a disaster. I lost my main source of income. 

Basically, I’ve been focused on completing school for so long that actually achieving that goal is almost scary. It wouldn’t be as nerve-wracking if the world wasn’t on fire and I had confidence that I’d be parachuting from the graduation stage to a career. That might still happen, God willing, but it feels much less likely.

My story isn’t unique. The class that graduated this spring was thrust into a chaotic world, and barring the successful implementation of a vaccine the same looks likely for the class of 2021. I’m old for a college senior, but all of us have grown up in a post-9/11 world that’s currently enduring its second economic crisis in the span of 12 years. Even before the pandemic (it’s important to note that the current recession started in February, before the disease began spreading in America) we were going to be launching ourselves into a gig economy built on inequality. 

That’s what’s been on my mind as I start this final semester. It’s going to be a jarring experience, one I’ll be writing about here at Where We Are. You can expect a good amount of writing about the experience of going to college during a pandemic, which will ideally be in addition to your regularly scheduled programming (schoolwork permitting). I’m hoping to provide insight into what my little corner of the American educational system is like.

This fall is going to be bad. Many schools, including my own, are trying to either finish their semesters or send everyone home by Thanksgiving in anticipation of a possible second wave of COVID. It’ll also be flu season on top of that. The CDC is already warning that it’s going to get ugly. 

Most of my classes will be meeting online, thankfully. It’ll still have to occasionally go to campus. I’ll be in a classroom tomorrow. The university has implemented exhaustive safety guidelines and I trust my professor. 

I’m still scared. 

I was actually on campus last week to get a COVID test (it came back negative), and I realized when I got there that I had wandered into the middle of move-in day. MSU is largely a commuter school, but there’s still a good amount of on-campus housing.

There were a lot of people moving around. Almost all of the students I saw were masked. It still freaked me out. It didn’t help that I got this email yesterday.

Fun. 

We already know about major problems at UNC, Notre Dame, and Alabama. Those are bigger schools with bigger residential populations. But it’s still scary. Obviously students need to be smart. That’s not up for debate. But also, are we supposed to be surprised? Are we surprised that college students are breaking the rules? Are we surprised that college students are horny and want to get drunk, even during a pandemic? 

Isn’t it on administrators to account for that sort of inevitable behavior when deciding whether or not to bring students back to campus? I’m fine with throwing the book at students who violate safety protocols. That’s exactly what should happen. But should those students even be there in the first place?

There’s a dissonance here. It feels like we’re doing all of this because it’s inevitable, not because we have to. 

As far as I can tell, Montclair State is being smarter about how they’re handling the pandemic than those big schools are. That still doesn’t make me feel wonderful.

Where We Are is going to be providing a look at what going to class on campus is like, as well as the demands of remote learning. I’m going to try to bring in some perspectives from students at other institutions, and I’ll be linking to work I produce for the Montclair State student newspaper.

It’s going to be a weird semester. That’s for sure.