“On March 11, while I was in Texas with a few friends for Spring Break, the entire WashU student body received an email that classes were going online in response to COVID-19, and that if we were back home, we should stay there. I think, as people, we tend to conceptualize global crises on this scale through a selfish perspective of how it affects our personal lives, so hearing the news definitely made the situation more tangible and scary. While the initial feelings of sadness and shock have both lingered and evolved, I remember having a completely inaccurate view of what life for the rest of the semester would look like. Everything still felt so uncertain, especially given the fact that most people were away from campus for Spring Break. I speculated that classes going online would provide me with more free time to spend time with friends (who are mostly upperclassmen with off-campus housing) and enjoy our last two months together. At the time, this felt like a reasonable prediction—but it soon became clear that the responsible and necessary choice was to stay home and social distance, especially after St. Louis issued a shelter in place order.

That being said, I felt almost spoiled in my isolation scenario. I spent the rest of the semester in my St. Louis apartment quarantined with my roommates and close friends. We got along, were never at each other’s throats, and even had access to a beautiful campus whenever we wanted fresh air. To say this situation was privileged is an understatement given the immense loss people all around the world are feeling.

Three days ago, I left St. Louis to be with my family in Bloomington, Indiana. The change has been a bit of an emotional whiplash. Of course, as many other participants in this project have touched on, having a family to come back to is in and of itself an immense privilege, and a comfortable situation. But on a personal level, the sense of loss still stings. The last 4 years—an incredibly formative time in my life—have just fizzled out with next to no closure. I bid many friends an indefinite goodbye without a hug, handshake, or even seeing them in person. Never in my life have I been more unsure of what comes next, on a personal or global scale. But at the same time, we can take solace in this universal sense of uncertainty and fear. There’s a massive range in the magnitude of effects the pandemic is having on people’s lives, and the only way through it is to draw on our empathy and face it together.”