Editorial | Our first day back
Illustration by RUPALI INGLE, Illustrator
It’s 8 a.m. and the smell of freshly cut grass slowly blends into the aroma of pencil shavings and freshly mopped floors. The sounds of the unzipping of crisp polyester backpacks, full of manila paper and crayons, reverberates around. Pink and yellow highlighters pop off binder pages.
No, we aren’t in elementary school anymore — a time characterized by first-day-of-school jitters. But despite being college students, we’re experiencing that same sense of nervousness in anticipation to return to some in-person classes after spring break. Many of us will spend hours picking out our best outfit or getting a fresh haircut. Those crayons are replaced with crisp ballpoint pens and the smell of the elementary school classroom will become the now-nostalgic atmosphere of, should it reopen this spring, the Argyros Forum — a conglomerate of Einstein Bros. Bagels aroma, Jamba’s overwhelmingly loud blenders and lines that are simply too long to wait in if we want to be in class before a metaphorical school bell rings.
In our childhood, heading off to school for the first time, our social skills weren’t yet developed. All we could muster when approaching a classmate was a simple, “Do you want to be friends?”
But while our brains are infinitely more developed now, after living in a digital world where we could simply log out of an uncomfortable situation or turn off our cameras if we didn't feel like being present , our social skills might Benjamin Button themselves right back to stammering and involuntary, awkward giggles whenever anyone asks us how our day is going.
What happens if, in the coming weeks, we run into a friend walking to their class? What did people used to do? Did we wave? No, we should just smile. No — we’re wearing a mask and they can’t see that smile.
Because of our need to be overly expressive on Zoom, what if during class we all obnoxiously nod our heads and give a thumbs up after every other sentence so the professor knows we are paying attention? What if one of us shows up to in-person class wearing a button-down top and sweatpants underneath? (Actually, this is college; we’ve probably seen this anyway.)
So, we know the rhythm of our day-to-days will be different. And we’re in it with you. As much as we all hate online class, there are some benefits: being able to schedule back to back meetings without having to sprint across campus, waking up two minutes before class or simply not getting out of bed. Now we’re faced with the prospect of walking outside our dorms, apartments and houses to brave the world — backpack in one hand, mask in the other.
There are undoubtedly safety risks involved, and there’s a credible chance that COVID-19 cases will spike after two weeks of hybrid learning. We’re all wary of attending in-person lectures, especially if that one kid in your class who just kind of feels anti-mask shows up. But most of the freshman class — especially the almost 400 who moved into the dorms in February — will understandably do anything just to step foot on campus for the first time. And for seniors, this is the last chance they’ll ever have to walk into a classroom on campus.
If our community works together to get weekly tests from the Student Health Center, skip the unmasked fraternity parties and forgo spring break vacations, maybe this can really work. Maybe we can begin to see some sort of normalcy while keeping our community safe. Maybe we can recapture that elementary school giddiness once again.