How COVID-19 affects me
31 Mar 2020
College life
Living on campus my college life as a student surprisingly hasn’t changed all that much. I’m an introvert at heart which makes it easy for me to adjust to the new changes in effect due to the virus. I get my social fix via online video games, which is a solution to other things like stress and boredom. Social interaction can have a positive influence on human beings both physically and mentally so finding conventions that abide by social distancing and other practices is important. My daily routines are a bit different but I don’t mind it at all. Using Zoom is a bit fresh but it’s not that strange considering that most professors are using the same material they would teach on the projector anyways. I do miss physically going to classes but the good thing is that using Zoom allows me to hear the Instructor very clearly without too much static. Getting food from the cafeteria isn’t that much different from what I did before either, usually, I get a take out box anyway, so the new procedures for getting lunch or dinner is similar to what I did before. The silver lining in this is that COVID-19 is a respiratory virus so that means that you don’t have to worry too much when it comes to eating food from the supermarkets or cafeterias.
Its impact and how it affects me
COVID-19’s impact on my life is significant, not only do I want to be safe and precautious for others, but I want to be safe for those I care about around me. I have multiple family members, my girlfriend included, that have compromised immune systems. This means that if I catch the virus, I could potentially infect them or people around me without even knowing as it has an incubation period up to two weeks, three in some cases. I just hate that feeling that I could be responsible for people around me getting sick. That’s is why it’s very important to take the correct precautions when going out into the public, or even at home. Washing hands is the most obvious thing to do but washing them correctly is what matters. I remind myself to wash my hands very thoroughly and often. I almost have to pretend that I am a surgeon about to operate on someone so that I wash my hands the right way. The virus also affects the way I act around people, as I get anxiety when I hear someone cough or sneeze. I don’t like to profile people but if someone has the slightest indication of being sick I stay far away. It could just be allergies for all I know but it’s too risky to even chance something like that. My ability to learn hasn’t changed all that much, it may just be a little more difficult to get answers considering that there is greater response time to how fast an instructor will respond to an email versus asking a question in class. But other than that most assignments are due online anyway so it doesn’t change much. Students like me in ICS 314 are lucky to have such great instructors because adapting to an online format isn’t easy. It doesn’t feel strange to have this class online because all the course work is online anyways
The changes that we need to make moving forward
I think it is a good thing to stay hygienic and clean even after the COVID-19 numbers go down. Washing hands thoroughly, keeping coughs and sneezes in the inside of the elbow, etc, are good precautions to not spreading a virus or an illness. I think it would be awesome if schools would keep the option for online material just in case a student feels sick to prevent them from losing out on learning. Students like me hate the missing class, which isn’t good because some will still go to class with a cold or even worse. I think this is a valuable lesson in how bad a virus can be and we take modern medicine for granted. The flu is laughable because we have vaccines, but when something new like this comes about I feel like nobody is ready.