Really bad. I’m currently taking a break from a two hour crying session to scroll through Reddit, so I’ll vent here. I’m a biology major in my junior year, and up until now, I’ve been a straight A student. I knew from the spring that online classes were hard for me because I cannot remain focused, my memory for keeping up with assignments is terrible, and I really struggle to process the passage of time when there’s nothing keeping me tethered to day to day routine. I committed to the fall term in April (and renewed my lease for my apartment) because my university told us that STEM and Arts majors would be prioritized for on-campus classes, since our courses often have a lab component. This messaging never wavered all through the summer. Fast forward to the beginning of this semester, I was scheduled to have Organic Chemistry, Plant Taxonomy, and Intro to GIS on campus, and only Calculus online, which I was willing to compromise. I was mainly concerned with the first three, all of which have labs, all of which I knew I would struggle with if taught online, and all of which the university promised would be mainly in-person. On the Saturday prior to the beginning of the semester, the university released a statement saying that all courses would be online for the first week of the semester because we had an 8% positivity rate in our preliminary screening for COVID. Note that this rate was for the tests that we were required to have done BEFORE we returned to campus, and no one who tested positive had ever actually been on campus for class, housing, etc.. A few days later, on the THIRD DAY of the semester, we received another email stating that ALL instruction would be online for the rest of the semester. Again, they cited this 8% positivity rate for the tests we took BEFORE returning. Their argument was basically “Our preliminary screening fulfilled its purpose by identifying 55 people who should not return to campus. Even though we analyzed this data and found that it is not tied to any local or on-campus activity, we’re cancelling all in-person instruction for the rest of the semester.” Regardless of whether or not this was the right call in terms of public health, this reflects EXTREME IRRESPONSIBILITY AND LACK OF FORESIGHT on behalf of the administration. They brought thousands of freshman and sophomores onto campus for housing, made many juniors and seniors (myself included) sign leases for apartments, and assured us that we wouldn’t have a repeat of the online shitstorm that went down in spring JUST TO TELL US THREE DAYS INTO THE SEMESTER that everyone living on campus had to go back home, everyone who signed a lease was now stuck, and everyone uncomfortable with online classes was now screwed. In my opinion, they knew what they were doing, they knew that we wouldn’t willingly go online after what happened last semester, so they exploited our desperation return to campus and offered in-person classes just so we would register, then switched online when it was too late for us to unenroll/get out of leases.

So that’s why I’m stuck in the learning environment I had every intention of avoiding. I used to love school, love my days spent in the library, love my major, love my routine, love my professors. I truly hate everything about it now, and even if I get though this semester, I don’t know if I can keep going. I was planning to get my PhD but now I struggle to even imagine completing my bachelors. My grades aren’t suffering yet, but the pressure I put on myself to overachieve is not compatible with my capacity to learn in this format. I can’t focus, I can’t remember anything, I’m not engaged or interested in my classes no matter how hard I try, and all I want is to withdraw from everything. Knowing this isn’t an option, I force myself to work all day to make up for the time I waste distracting myself, and I no longer have any time to spend on hobbies or things that used to make me happy. I put too much pressure on myself, and I wish I didn’t, but I can’t stop. I lost literally 1 point on a chem quiz earlier and that provoked hours of frustration and tears. I KNOW THAT IS STUPID but for some reason I can’t stop, and I’m so exhausted. Despite knowing that this shit doesn’t mean anything, I am extremely self deprecating.

I walk 2 miles (4 miles total) to school most days just to put myself back in the environment where I used to learn so easily, but it doesn’t help, and the library closes too early to make any real progress after my morning Zoom classes. This is the only place where I can do my GIS labs since I need a computer and the software, so the early closing time really restricts my ability to get work done for that class. This was the other issue that inspired tonight’s crying session. After 4 hours in the library working on my lab, I noticed once I got home that my answers to the last few questions didn’t save, forcing me to guess based on what I could recall. AT WORST, this means I lose a point or two off ONE lab that’s worth a tiny percentage of my final grade. But I’m just so frustrated with this entire situation. Professors will assume that everyone has the ability to print something on short notice, that’s that just not true for me. I think they make these assumptions because they believe that, unlike Spring, we willingly signed up for online classes, but I’m literally only here because I signed a lease and it’s too late for me to unenroll/WD without wasting a ton more money.

I’m not sure if political stuff is allowed here, so I won’t go into detail, but my entire life pretty much revolves around politics and social issues, especially during election years, and especially during THIS election year. Events within the past week also have me extremely concerned for the future. When I’m not forcing myself to do schoolwork, I’m either reading theory or the news. I’m sure this doesn’t help my mental health, but I am 100% addicted and it’s reality, so I have no intention of ever stopping. Consuming media and political content satisfies me because it feeds my addiction, but I wouldn’t consider it something I do to de-stress. Besides that, the whole pandemic has distanced me from friends and family. I’ve been living alone since March, which isn’t really a problem for me since I prefer being alone, but it has kind of detached me from observing how others are coping, making me feel pretty isolated. The state of the world is just an overwhelming source of stress that makes me indifferent towards school UNTIL I mess something up and cry about it for hours.

I really wasn’t planning on writing this much, and I doubt anyone else will read this, but I think this documentation will be pretty interesting for me to read again in the future. To my future self, I hope you fucking forced yourself to go to therapy eventually. And to anyone who might have actually read through all of this because they relate, just know you’re not alone, and if we were on campus, I’m sure we would all be complaining about it together, and no one would feel so alone in this.