As I'm sure is true for most of us, I never expected to spend a semester of my college career online... That being said, it wasn't bad! This is only my personal experience, but I think its important to share how LC handled this semester and how it influenced me and my education.
Academically, this semester has been harder than others, perhaps due to being farther in my college career and having harder classes... I feel like I haven't been as involved in the resources LC provides this semester, but that technically is my own doing. Don't get me wrong, I definitely learned a LOT this semester, but I sure miss being able to be in person and on campus. A lot of my retention of information was based on work outside of zoom class periods. I had one class this semester where half was in person and half was online, and you can see in my notebook which days were in person and which weren't!! I took music theory fundamentals, which was super interesting, but some classes don't translate to online as well as others, so that's something to consider when picking your classes.
Socially, this semester was a little lonely. Luckily, I live at a house with three of my best friends, two of which I have classes with. With two other housemates in addition to the other three, we had a large enough group to have some fun. We had one other house that we saw in person with masks, but it wasn't quite the same as pre-COVID. I just never expected to be bummed about not meeting new freshmen as a junior!
I think LC is doing and has done pretty good with this whole thing, but it for sure isn't what I'd imagined my junior year would look like. We did a good job with our case numbers and testing, which is more than some other communities can say, but this whole thing has taken a lot out of me! This winter break will be good to recharge and prepare for the spring!
I hope this is useful in your pursuit of how to move forward in this whacky world in terms of your education. As always, please reach out to me with any questions or to just connect to see more about my life at LC: jocelyn@lclark.edu @moonrisesoul_ on instagram