A full year has passed since my peers and I were told that all students had to evacuate Harvard’s campus due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the week leading up to what was supposed to be spring break, the entire campus was occupied with packing and goodbyes, two months too soon. Spring break, itself, turned into one long stay at home. At first, being back at home in Mississippi was a bit chaotic. While people were panic shopping and store shelves were completely empty, it was evident that not everyone was taking the situation seriously. But the initial panic eventually subsided and turned into quarantining at home.

With the exception of winter break and the odd week off here and there, it had been a long time since I had spent an extended period of time at home. It was nice to be with family, especially my little brothers and cousins. Since I lived at a public residential high school for junior and senior year and then went straight to college afterwards, I realized I hadn’t spent this kind of quality time with my family in almost four years. I spent a lot of evenings and weekends  with my siblings and cousins playing ultimate frisbee, having movie nights, and celebrating birthdays (which I usually have to miss) to make up for all that lost time!

While being at home meant lots of time with family, it also meant keeping up with school from home. I found it very difficult to motivate myself to do school work while I was home, especially as I made the transition to online learning. That said, professors were generally accommodating of the circumstances during the spring 2020 semester. Going into the fall semester of 2020 and spring semester of 2021, professors were more prepared for online teaching, with course materials being adapted for remote student learning. I do think that there is a greater sense of accountability on the student side of online learning, since a lot of materials that would traditionally be taught in a lecture format are now being made available to students to view asynchronously.

Classes weren’t the only thing that changed dramatically. Student organizations also had to adapt to an online format. A lot of the clubs that I am involved with, such as Harvard Primus (the first-generation and low-income student union) and Harvard Model Congress, continued to meet and host events throughout the pandemic on Zoom, allowing us to maintain some sense of community and continuity. However, this cycle of online classes, remote extracurricular activities, and never ending Zoom calls, all while being quarantined at home, made it feel like I was living the same week over and over again, which only added to the initial cabin fever of quarantining. However, as time went on, we found better ways of entertaining ourselves and creating some novel experiences in a safe manner, despite being in a global pandemic.

Keeping up with friends from college was also tough, but everyone became professionals at coordinating Zoom calls and playing virtual games. It’s been nice to see how friends and their families are doing, despite the circumstances. Hopefully, we’ll all see each other in person soon for fall 2021.