College 2020: The Fall
Rishona Michael and Lara Stecewycz, two talented interns of Arrowsmith Press, have come together to compare notes on college life in 2020. Lara is a freshman at UMass Amherst, and Rishona is in her senior year at Emerson College.
RISHONA MICHAEL
Pandemic and Classes:
Earlier this month, I sat in the auditorium for my nonfiction writing class, exactly three chairs away from another student. My professor stood in front of the dimly lit room and behind the small microphone. She let out a long sigh before taking a deep breath and beginning the class. From afar, I was able to notice how the skin below her eyes had darkened since the beginning of the semester; her tone was now harsher when addressing difficult questions.
Recently, I reached out to a college friend who was also staying in Boston for the semester to check in. She explained that she sadly had to take a leave of absence because the semester was harder than she expected after having uncontrollable seizures and an inexplicable amount of emotional stress. Another friend, originally from Switzerland, decided to take classes online for the fall semester. She had been staying up until 6am (in Switzerland) just to continue with her classes and extracurricular activities. While she was sure she’d return to Boston for the spring semester, due to an increase in cases in both countries she will continue staying awake until 6am.
Needless to say, this semester has been emotionally and physically draining. After each zoom call, I can confidently say that my eyes and muscles are weaker, and my brain feels like putty. Hours spent in my small apartment turn into days, and as the semester comes to an end I am continuing to lose motivation.
My college has put into effect a hybrid learning environment — allowing students to attend each class in person for only one day of the week, while the others are online. In the grand scheme of things, not all that much has changed. We still attend class and we still have the same amount of homework; finals and midterms are still exhausting, and classmates still turn to each other for help. Now though, no one lingers between classes to catch up with friends. We all have to wear masks, and classrooms are a lot bigger in order to spread us out. The library that once held sections for study groups, where friends would unwind productively and collectively stress-out over homework, have turned into rows and rows of dispersed empty desks.
There are days when I am unable to get out of bed, followed by days when my roommate is unable to get out of bed. I realized that this was a common issue amongst many students when my professors started extending assignment due dates. Students are losing family members and friends, while friend groups are dispersed around the world. Perhaps we’re feeling all the lost lives that used to be a part of the Boston community, or perhaps it’s seasonal depression kicking in.
In so many of my classes, we sit in silence as our professors wait for us to participate in the discussion. COVID cases are going up, and administrators are crossing their fingers that we will be able to get through this first semester and send students home before another potential lockdown.
Hobbies/Coping:
Now that Boston has a 10 pm curfew in place again, people are antsy with ways to keep busy on Friday nights. The frat boys in the house across the street from me play music for half the block to hear; all to reminisce about the parties they used to host. My roommates have been great company, and we have found ways to enjoy the most of our small three-bedroom apartment. I have started painting on small canvases when my anxiety is consuming — an activity I can do while watching the news. Some nights my roommates and I bake, from chocolate chip oatmeal cookies to apple cakes. Nights when the kitchen counter is coated with flour and the dining table covered with cookie sheets ready for the oven, when we pop open a bottle of wine and play music, are nights when I feel okay with the state of the world. Many days though, I wake up overwhelmed with anxiety and fatigue. These mornings, I like to make tea or coffee, cuddle on the couch, and journal. I tend to make lists of things that I can control, or things small victories and pleasant moments I have witnessed or experienced. Sometimes it’s hard to find motivation knowing that I will be graduating during a pandemic — will we be able to find jobs? Is grad school abroad off the table? Seniors everywhere have a mental broken record playing the same questions. It’s good to remember to take it a step at a time, a day at a time; and on some days, a minute at a time.
Politics and Relationships:
New Jersey is a state known by outside residents for the Jersey Shore reality TV show and the state capital. Residents are fully aware of its comforting diner food and the never-ending highways. There are the fluffy bagels at 6am served with bitter coffee, and the summer beach days that end with boardwalk ice cream strolls. Jersey is known for the beautiful college campuses, such as Montclair and Princeton, and has some of the best farm tours in the fall. I lived in a town filled with farms and farmland. High school seemed to me to have various divides — the theatre students versus the athletic students, those in advanced classes versus non-advanced classes, or those who were raised as republicans and those raised as democrats. The latter of the divides became most clear to me in 2016, when Donald Trump became our president.
I was a student who wasn't entirely into politics at the time, yet I knew I held many liberal ideas. I laughed when I found out Trump was running for president; I genuinely thought, there is no way he would win, it’s all a joke. I recall my mother getting annoyed at my laughter at the time; she was definitely concerned with his potential victory where, at first, I was not. By November, I saw she was right. The day after the 2016 elections, my high school hallways were filled with teenage Trump supporters running in between classes and cheering. I remembered my best friend, Diana, and her brother joining in with the cheering and being surprised. I didn’t know she and her family supported Trump — and while it made me uneasy, I brushed it off and we never really addressed this difference of political opinion after.
I thought that watching the way our President handled — and didn’t handle — certain situations, was enough to prove that he is a very selfish man. I disliked the way he talked, as if anyone who disagreed with him was unworthy of respect. I disagreed with how he didn’t shut down the country when COVID cases were growing — it was the states that did, they knew what to do. I disliked how he accidentally told racists groups to “stand down, and stand by,” but never clarified if he did or did not support racists groups. I disagreed with how he did not listen to the members advocating for Black Lives Matter, and therefore failed to acknowledge and address the racial issues that continue to prevail in our country. And so, over time, I believed that Diana’s opinions on the president must have changed — she had expressed certain ideas that favored this understanding as well.
But one day, after expressing my stresses and anxieties in regards to the state of the world, we began arguing. At first the arguments concerned our religious beliefs. While I was learning about what so many religions have in common, she continued to stay loyal to the Christian religion, a religion that I grew up practicing as well. In the heat of August, as we were all preparing to go back to school and experience a confusing semester, the conversations we had were just as difficult. The religious arguments slowly turned into political arguments and arguments about BLM. Her statements would fester in my mind for a whole day before I couldn’t ignore them, and would want to discuss them further. It was hurting our friendship, and was emotionally exhausting for the both of us, but part of the change that our country needed was having these difficult conversations.
The arguments reminded me of an earlier night with a family friend — a man who has been such a good father figure in my life, so much so that I have always addressed him as my uncle. It was during the beginning of the BLM protests when he joined us for a barbecue dinner. The air was clear and my neighbor’s horses were starting to drift asleep as we piled lettuce and tomatoes onto our burgers. Once I sat down adjacent to him, he brought up BLM and questioned the legitimacy of the protests. We had an intense conversation about racism in America and whether it still exists (yes, it does). By the end of the night, we gathered up our trash and filled up the sink with our dishes. He ended our conversation advocating Trump and questioning BLM.
At one point, Diana asked me why we both could not have our own opinions. Why she couldn’t be against BLM and be a supporter of Trump while keeping our friendship strong. But the fact of the matter is that President Trump has failed to acknowledge his implicit bias. The opinions that we disagree on harm others and myself, and the failure to learn one another's opinion definitely complicates relationships.
The Future:
Next year, I plan to apply to graduate school to study poetry. While working on my application, I keep questioning where the safest place to attend school might be. Should I be going to California if all the forest fires are still raging and there are no attempts to help control them from our government? Should I go towards New York City, closer to home, but probably not the safest place during a pandemic? Should I stay in Boston because it's comfortable? Or should I simply go back home to New Jersey? Will my classes be completely online? Will I have a job to help pay the bills?
I wonder whether or not a new presidential leader will change the current divide in America. And whether or not masks will naturally be incorporated into our everyday lives from now on. I wonder if students will always be as anxious during school or whether graduations will always be virtual. I wonder if the next pandemic will be sooner than we think, and whether we will be more prepared. I wonder how much paint I will go through by the time I graduate, and if the future will ever be a bit more clear than it is right now.
LARA STECEWYCZ
Pandemic and Classes:
I suppose it could have been worse.
Attending college remotely has been the guacamole layer in a seven-layer chip dip: a taste of what’s usually expected, and expensive. Yes, I’m learning -- and loving it -- but where’s the social life? The activities, the activism, the independence? To be fair, a social life is a lot to ask for during a worldwide pandemic, but after seeing the faces of your college friends in 2-D for three months, the relationships you have built feel intangible. It gets to be lonely. Your classmates and professors feel 2-D. Your assignments and effort begin to feel 2-D… maybe you feel 2-D too.
At the same time, the pandemic has allowed me to slow down a little bit. Seven layers is a lot for one chip to handle. Scooping them all up at once could cause your chip to break. Gratitude has become a close friend. I’ve realized how exceptionally wonderful the sun is. Last year I asked for a light therapy lamp for my birthday in an attempt to save myself. It now gets dark outside before dinnertime, and I didn’t realize how dark it could become — and feel — inside. Spoiler alert: a lamp cannot replace the sun.
I am also grateful that the people in my life are healthy, safe, and alive. Every time I hear Ukrainian spoken in the next room, I know my mom is calling her aunt. They converse about challenges of daily life, places they’ve been to recently, and their hopes for the near future, all braided together to form heartfelt conversations that spell out I’m thinking of you.
I am grateful for my classes (more-or-less). In one class — my favorite — I get to write and write and use eggs and water and snow globes and light as metaphors for unhatched potential and youthfulness and childhood and knowledge. Another class is solely about women’s history. Did you know it’s possible to write an entire history book talking only about women in classical antiquity? My textbooks in high school never discussed women’s lives and work for more than a few paragraphs. I’m reminded about how much women dealt with, but also about how far women have come. After what I've learned in my course on sexuality, I have not viewed the United States in the same way: how it treats our transgender community — and our LGBTQIA+ community as a whole and our black community and our Hispanic community and our Asian community and Aboriginal peoples and… Yet we like to view ourselves as setting an example for the world.
I have learned that our country is terribly flawed. I’ve also learned that it’s impossible to keep politics out of the classroom. But to understand that my generation will have to fix our country’s mistakes makes me want to say, Bring on the news! Let’s talk about this.
Hobbies/Coping
I’ve been growing a lot of plants. In part because plants allow me to feel capable of growth at a time when the walls of my room are like skin (peach-pink and limiting), and the college experience entails marching (rolling?) the three feet from my bed to my desk. And in part because the plants are long and leafy, dangling and flourishing, pretty and green. I’ve been growing plants to see how far water can take us.
My life has become a series of rituals. Each night after dinner, my parents and I watch The Office (the U.S. version). Before bed, I call my boyfriend. I’ve been walking on the woodsy paths behind my house. I’ve been hanging my laundry on drying racks on the deck, where the sun is brightest. I’ve been able to pretend that life is at a stand-still, and that I don’t yet have to deal with the prospect of growing up. My mom tells me I have a whole life of independence ahead of me, and that I should enjoy this brief stage of prolonged adolescence. I’m at home, surrounded by many of the people I love. I’ve taken advantage of the little familiars. This has become the endless summer. In high school, we pretended that summer never ended. Nights were hot and sticky, but the days were long, and we tried to push them to their limit. Now, living in Coronaland as a college student, I’ve seen how far I can stretch this transitional stage between the present and the pre-COVID normal to which I hope we can soon return.
I’ve been writing. Mostly essays for my classes and unreasonable (albeit thorough) to-do lists, but also for myself, even if my writing stinks. Finding the time is worth it, even if it’s two-in-the-morning. Sometimes I cannot fall asleep until I quell my fiery passion to write down a single line that seems, at the time, profound. Fumbling for a piece of paper in the darkness, finding instead a copy of The Old Man and the Sea, I write my ground-breaking idea in the book's margins. When I wake up the next morning I find I've written, “great idea: girl finds thing in wall.” Still, I don’t regret the spontaneous writing.
Politics and Relationships:
The waiting is always the hardest part. Memes had been populating the internet declaring the frustration with Nevada taking too long to get their votes counted (poor Nevada). On the (first) night of the election, I was writing an essay about the film Four Hundred Blows by Francois Truffaut, and at a certain point in the evening I couldn’t determine if it was the essay getting me through the election, or the election getting me through the essay. On top of that, I was listening to my dad’s commentary of the election results as they gradually came in. He began celebrating in preparation for Trump's win at 8:00pm on that first night with a snifter of Kahlúa.
It’s difficult to live in a house divided. When Biden jumped to 257 electoral votes, my dad explained, “It’s election fraud. Those numbers aren’t valid, they’re meaningless. What a big fat joke Biden’s win would be.” And although I want to respond, I don’t quite feel like I can speak up in my own house. Otherwise, I’ll be reminded that I’m too young to have a valid political opinion. This is where we are.
Fortunately, the household is in agreement on certain stances — preeminently, women’s rights and equal opportunity for women. Not long after election day, my dad explained how glad he was to see more women in Congress than before. Beyond the household are admirable views: my boyfriend Henry began involving himself in politics at a young age, with the 2016 election happening not long after his 13th birthday. Following the Biden victory, I texted Henry “Yayayayayayay!” and danced on a table for a few minutes, then went back to my homework. It is a win. But in a household divided it cannot be a win because I’ll hear how Biden is a fraud for the next four years. Nevertheless, my mom and I had a small celebration. Later in the evening, we went for a walk in a woodsy area a few miles away from our house. On the drive there, we passed by a substantial (socially-distanced) party of folks over the age of fifty, chatting in masks and clinking wine glasses. A massive peacock also roamed around the party, which I tried to see as some sort of victory sign. After the walk, my mom and I ate pasta.
View fullsize
My dad has a photo of himself at three-years-old. He’s wearing his father’s watch, which is as big as his little fist. Taken just before he and his Ukrainian parents immigrated to the U.S., this may be one of the only photos my dad has of himself as a child. For the majority of his life, my father’s been a democrat, but is today a libertarian. Why the switch? He told me it’s because he read “false-news,” that the government was trying to convince him of a world they thought was better, but my dad saw as harmful, frightening.
After hearing his parents’ stories about growing up in Germany and a Soviet-run Ukraine, maybe he saw democrats and socialists and communists as too similar. Maybe it also comes down to an appeal of Trump’s economy. My dad wants to be well-off, an inventor, well-known, proud. He wants a better life. But can people have this kind of a better life without inequality? In short, today, our views of how the world can be improved are different. It’s difficult for a nineteen-year-old to speak to a seventy-four-year-old in an attempt to find common ground, or at least peace. But, is it possible to look past disagreements to find a closeness? It is said that family is forever, but does this mean that disagreement is also forever?
The Future:
I think I think too much. Especially about the future and what it entails and what I’ll do and who I’ll be. On those woodsy-walks I take with my mom, we talk about college, my major, my career… our conversations always steer back towards those topics — a familiar path down which we travel. We discuss my plans for next semester: although UMass is open, I likely won’t be on campus. (It’s cheaper and safer to stay home.) We discuss classes: do I take mainly English courses to satisfy my major requirements, or do I explore psychology, philosophy, astronomy? And then we discuss the beyond: after college and, inevitably, grad school, what will I do with what I have learned? Will I teach? Will I write? What will come of my life?
We’ve become a generation with outsized ambitions which grow with each day we find ourselves confined. And I don’t doubt that striving for political change has played a significant role in our ambition. We want a better world, we want our voices heard, and we will try, in one form or another, to make that happen. That means we should start right now. This second. How do we do this? Where are all of the opportunities?
And then I stop to remind myself that I’m a Freshman in college.
Don’t let intrusive thoughts and worries overwhelm you. If you are, right now, a Freshman in college, you have three-and-a-half more years before you confront the distant future — one of numerous futures you will encounter. Enjoy the future-now, the future-tomorrow. Grow some plants to see how far water can take you. Grow as a person to see how far you can take yourself. Remember where your roots are planted, and look forward to the moment when you bloom. One-day-at-a-time. Enjoy all of this as much as you can.
Rishona Michael is a rising senior at Emerson College, majoring in Writing, Literature, and Publishing. She enjoys studying and writing poetry and prose, and is excited to see where her writing will take her. Recently joining the Arrowsmith Press team as an intern, she has been working to spread the word about recent publications.
Lara Stecewycz will enter the University of Massachusetts, Amherst as a freshman this August. She plans to study English in the Commonwealth Honors College. Her poetry and short stories have been recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and she has been a finalist for her school’s chapter of Poetry Out Loud. Lara worked as an editor for her high school’s literary magazine. She has also taught English as a second language. In June, Lara began working as an intern at Arrowsmith Press, where she contacts potential reviewers, publicizes journal columns, proofreads manuscripts, and is building Arrowsmith’s social media platforms. She is also the co-author of her first column in Arrowsmith Journal.