Car Talks with Van: Thank you CCU for Giving us in Person Classes
Welcome to Car talks with Van. My goal is to have conversations with people from all different walks of life and open up discussion on a unique variety of topics. I want people to laugh, cry, reflect, but most importantly I want to inspire people to have conversations with their loved ones. There are so many people I know that don’t have open and honest conversations with their moms and dads, friends, siblings, etc. It is important to talk to each other, listen to one another, and laugh with one another.
When all college kids across America got sent home in March, the fear of never returning quickly set in. Will this pandemic rob us of our college experience? How long are we going to be online? Will we graduate from Zoom University? Thankfully, CCU is the only college in Colorado that offers full-time in person classes at the moment. We are beyond blessed to have the opportunity to still learn in-person during this global pandemic.
When we transitioned into online learning last March, college students across the country struggled. Doing zoom lectures while quarantined with your family is not the ideal learning environment. I breathed a sigh of relief when CCU announced that they were offering in-person full time classes. I barely made it through a month of online classes, it would’ve been a struggle to continue online full time. However, not all college students are as lucky as us. One of my best friends Leilana, goes to the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, and she hasn’t been to an in-person class in over a year. I talked to her about the struggle of learning online and the effects that it has had on her mentally.
Leilana is one of my best friends, and she is one of the kindest, most extroverted person I know. Pursuing her degree in teaching from the comfort of her own bed has been debilitating for her. “I have no motivation to do online classes, I am tired of Zoom lectures, Zoom meetings, Zoom breakout rooms, Zoom anything, I am tired of it. I want to be able to go to class, talk to people, engage in the content, engage with my professors. Everyday feels the exact same, I wake up zoom, go to work, do school work, and repeat. Last year I had something fun planned almost every night of the week. This year I’m lucky if I have something fun planned once a month.”
This pandemic has robbed a lot of people of the one thing we value the most, our relationships. When we are stuck in our room, isolated from the world, it is very easy to slip into the feeling of loneliness. When we got sent home last March it killed me to not be able to see my hometown friends for a couple months. I couldn’t imagine being isolated from my college friends for longer than a year. Leilana has been very intentional in trying to maintain her relationships during this pandemic, but for people like Her and I who value quality time, our relationships during this pandemic feel empty. Leilana talked to me about the decline of Her mental health as well. “Sitting at home alone makes you realize how loud your thoughts are, I used to have things to help me drown out those noises, but now I am forced to face them head on, and it hasn’t been easy.” This pandemic has affected us all in different ways. However, after talking to Leilana I was grateful that I went to an institution that values the importance of in-person relationships and community.
