By David Ross
This year is completely different as far as the cafeteria experience. Last year the football team would be in there for hours after practice, pull chairs up and just relax and kick back, but this year, due to the pandemic, there are new rules and guidelines we have to follow. Seating is limited, you aren’t supposed to bring extra chairs to tables so sometimes you have to leave friends out and they have to sit alone or with people they don’t know.
I used to bring food in from my house and microwave it there in between classes and they stop you at the front desk now because they don’t want outside food being brought in, leads to missing out on meals with friends. They aren’t providing many types of foods from last year; they took out the omelet station, pizza bar and a few other things. The atmosphere definitely changed. You’re supposed to keep your mask on in there at all times unless you’re eating, the workers in the cafe are the ones enforcing those rules. If you walk up without a mask they always tell you one is needed before you’re served. I’m off-campus so I always feel isolated because about 90% of the students live on campus, but last year most students would come to our apartments to eat, swim, hang out, etc. But with all the new rules and regulations it doesn’t really have the family vibe it had when I first got here. Our coach changed our practice to one big practice with a heavily enforced COVID-19 protocol so we can all be together and get that family atmosphere back and I’m super excited about that.
I’m not a big fan of online classes. I’m more hands-on, one who likes the face to face interactions so the online classes are tough. I try not to do them from home because it’ll just end up being a lazy day. For the most part, I try to treat it like a normal class and Zoom from campus somewhere quiet. My time management fell off for a couple of weeks but I’ve switched some things around and I feel like I’m on track again ready to finish strong. Last year having fun consisted of the $2 Tuesday movie events and being on the Football team, but this year even though our record is better, it hasn’t been fun, there are a lot of selfish players, “I instead of us, always me and never we,” so that takes the fun out of it but the head coach is trying to change that with the new practice format and things seem to be headed in the right direction.
This is in response to Prompt #3 from Campus ReBoot, an interactive documentary in collaboration with the University of Hartford and other colleges and universities in the US, China, and Australia. For more information and to see other responses, please visit the Campus ReBoot website here: https://susancardillo.wixsite.com/campusreboot
