Five years after the start of COVID-19, students still feel the effect of the pandemic.
Some AACC students said they have noticed a lingering change in social interactions, their eagerness to take in-person classes, their mental health and their friendships years after the beginning of the pandemic.
“We’re getting back to where we were originally, but there’s still a little bit of a hesitation when it comes to interacting with other people,” Thomas Ayers, a third-year kinesiology student, said. “Trying to make sure you keep your distance.”
Daniel Long, a second-year engineering student, agreed, adding, “I definitely think things are more disconnected.”
AACC closed its campuses in March 2020 and held classes online onlyrererererre re . Most of today’s AACC students were in high school during the lockdown.
At the time, psychology professor Rachelle Tannenbaum recalled, students, parents and others lived in fear of loss of jobs and work hours, social isolation and catching the virus, which has killed more than 7 million people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.
“To put it mildly, it was not good for people’s mental health,” Tannenbaum said. “People were, even if they were not physically getting sick, understandably, they were very scared of COVID.”
That was the case for first-year visual arts student John Mancia-Autry, who said he dealt with mental health issues during the lockdown. Still, Mancia-Autry said, “I think that in the long run, it showed me that I needed help and that I got help and then ended up in a better position later because of it.”
Tannenbaum said the three semesters of online-only classes changed the way professors teach.
“It did force the college to really reconsider, ‘How do we incorporate online components into some of our courses?’” Tannenbaum said. “In the long run, there has been some benefit to that.”
For third-year psychology student Austin Coulbourn, the increase in online classes had a positive impact.
“I know there’s some classes with full-on degrees that are strictly online at AACC,” Coulbourn said. “I definitely think there’s been an increase in quality of them and I’ve really enjoyed partaking in my online classes.”
For some, like second-year transfer studies student James Cavanaugh, the pandemic led to closer bonds with friends.
“I made a lot of friends through other friends online, like, I made a lot of friends that I didn’t know personally,” Cavanaugh said. “And then became friends with them in real life after.”
For some, like second-year transfer studies student Jude Worth, the pandemic didn’t have much of an effect. “I don’t think there was necessarily any hard positive or negative,” Worth said.
