Colleges Promise Return to Normal This Fall. Are You Ready?

You recalled your ascent to Arthur's Seat many years ago, and how exhaustion prompted you to beg your father to stop and smell the flowers. It was a sunny day. Bumblebees explored the wildflowers that grew on the roadside, dangling from the gorse. You laid in the summer sunlight. It was a moment that made you thought about the past months. The pandemic forced you (and other college students) to adapt to remote learning, which was challenging at first. You got the hang of it, and you even enjoyed your chat with your coursemates and other students, until universities promise a return to normal this fall. Are you ready?

You were a (college) freshman before the pandemic turned your world upside down. It took you more than a week before you informed your professor about your choice of your (literary) genre, and she told you about the possible models to choose from. You met a lot of people - and you relished the social interactions. You thought that you wouldn't get over it, but you were amazed at how remote learning turned out to be. One of your coursemates described how his time was spent in rural Alabama. (The patchwork quilt of green and brownfields was far from the streetlights and glow of neon lights of Chicago, where he grew up. But there were bottle trees not far from where he lived. It made him recalled the beautiful tapestry of West African and African American legend. No sighting of High John and Brer Rabbit, though.) On the other hand, you were surprised at your tutor's dream of writing a musical about jogging. It would be a love letter to adventure, he added. (Yay.) And then you have more time on Bod (or Nobody Owens). You wondered if Neil Gaiman has written another book about him. Any of these would be better than writing a paper on neglected (Thomas) Hardy and his place within Victorian Realism. You haven't given much thought to how you spent more hours researching on Aphra Behn and how your 3,000-word essay would impress your professor, but there would be another time. You have mixed feelings about fall, if you might get awkward on your first face-to-face lecture since... never mind. Likewise, you must find out if you could measure pandemic learning loss, and how it would help you manage the stress and pressure resulting from limited time.

6 Important Lessons I Learned During the Pandemic

Writing is the forgotten "R". Writing is a critical life skill, but you're aware of it during your second year in high school. You read Stephen King's "On Writing" (during that year) and memorized your favorite quote of his ("Words create sentences; sentences create paragraphs; sometimes paragraphs quicken and begin to breathe.") You swore to your parents that your interest in King's works had nothing to do with your fascination with graveyards, though. You lost count of the number of essay you wrote and two-hour examinations you took, but it was the pandemic that made you realized the importance of writing and how its importance would go beyond school performance; your old bud would get irritated whenever you pointed out his mistakes in his e-mails, text messages, and social media posts, but you've been misunderstood. You're not harming anyone. Yet.

Do you remember learning to write? Blame it on the coursework: Too much texting and computer typing caused you to neglect your penmanship. As a matter of fact, not a few complimented your handwriting. You wouldn't dot your "I"s with little hearts, as you missed sending snail mails to your pen pals. One of them, a native of Barranquilla, Colombia, admired your positive view on education. She also recommended "No One Writes to the Colonel", arguably Gabriel Garcia Marquez's best work. It was about political oppression and human ingratitude, but your pen-friend pointed out that the storyline was based on Marquez's early years of his writing career. He was struggling to make a living, which you could relate to. (An essay of not less than 4,000 words is not a walk in a park.)

Is COVID-19 being used as an excuse? You noticed the reduction of the number of tutorials, which you didn't object at first. After all, the pandemic prompted your professors to focus on online lectures. But some lectures recycled recorded material. You asked your tutor about it. He admitted that it was hard to have critical discussions on Zoom, but this remote learning was a work in progress. And it still is.

(He asked for patience.) Check out the next item (for the reason).

Remote learning is here to say, even after the pandemic. Your tutor glared at you after you first complained about (the challenges of) remote learning. There were some students who have a health condition or two, which would make them apprehensive around other students. In fact, Bloomington Online School, a stand-alone, digital-only program, was created for the pandemic. Some remote programs are intended to be temporary, but your tutor believes that they are poised to outlast the pandemic. You wondered why these students preferred virtual schooling. You should have guessed (after your tutor revealed the reason).

Kindness doesn't cost a thing. You were saddened by the news of your dorm mate, a native of Chennai, India, who was forced to leave the dormitory after a student threatened his safety. (He didn't bring the coronavirus to the campus.) You suspected that student of being a racist, but you don't recall his face. (You often thought about the variations from the shortlist of essay titles that your professors have presented to you and your coursemates.) You posted your thoughts on social media, but some replies were disappointing. Most (American) teenagers haven't tried interrailing through Europe, your old man said. You discussed the possibility of creating a hub for foreign students (like your dorm mate), but it could wait. You're excited about the July 4 celebration.

The pandemic has thrown up some surprising consolations. You planned to work until Christmas and travel to New Zealand, but in the course of a few weeks in spring last year, the first lockdown began. Examinations were canceled, your college closed. All certainty disappeared. Then your sister told you about an advertisement by a local café (not far from your university). Making piles of bacon baps was very different from how your term was meant to be, but the experience gave you a taste of working life. You reassessed your career goals. It gave you time to learn what mattered and what doesn't.

At the End of the Pandemic, You Have

Confidence to handle the challenges and appreciate the opportunity to learn from them (and how it would make you better). It may not improve your critical, argumentative, and analytical skills, but the pandemic taught you not to take setbacks seriously. You still have to find your own little adventure.