It has been nearly 200 days since I was physically in college for my studies. At first it was a nice change from travelling every day for three hours on a germ infested bus just to get to my lectures and get home. Now I have started to miss the early mornings and the awful weather. Most of all I miss college. I have been desperately counting down the days until I get to walk through the dark and dreary Arts Building that I have learned to love and miss throughout these couple of months. However, there’s an uncertainty with the recently rising cases of Covid if we will be able to return to college on a daily basis again. This is why it is vital for all of us to abide by the rules that the college and the government have set in place to not only protect others but also not to rob ourselves of the college experience.
I was relieved when face coverings were made compulsory on campus. It has given me hope that we can finally have a new normal. Yes, face coverings are sometimes annoying especially when you wear glasses and they start to fog up and suddenly you are walking blindly through the streets. If you wear makeup, all of it rubs off on the inside of your face covering and you wonder why you even decided to put lipstick on in the first place. We all need to forget about the slight discomfort of masks and realise that they will protect everyone in the college community. But that’s not the only reason why you should wear a mask.
“We all need to forget about the slight discomfort of masks and realise that they will protect everyone in the college community.”
First of all, a large number of college students pay over €3000 for college each year. This amount varies whether you’re an international student or your fee is subsidised by the Irish Government. Nevertheless, you are still paying for an education. I think we have all discovered that online learning is suboptimal. It is full of awkward zoom lectures and assignments that are not beneficial. Tutorials and seminars vanish as the whole point of them is to interact and bounce off each other’s ideas. In person lectures, tutorials and seminars are vital to get the most out of our courses. If we don’t comply with strict social distancing and face covering regulations, these learning and growing opportunities will be taken away from us again.
Yes, your social life will suffer. It won’t be like last September when everyone sat outside and chatted while watching the weird roomba cutting grass very efficiently. Considering that our social lives have been minimal since March, and you were responsible enough to not attend any house parties, our social lives cannot get much worse than not being able to leave our houses to meet friends. We know now that the college decided that there will be no socialising within college but there are plenty of places to socialise safely outside of campus. There are parks around college such as St. Stephen’s Green or Merrion Square where you can sit two metres apart and drink your take away coffee while catching up with friends. If we don’t abide by this rule set by the college and there’s an outbreak on campus this could ultimately endanger all students. It would not only endanger their health but also everybody’s college experience.
When it comes to social distancing, it is much harder to be constantly vigilant. College looks very different as buildings on campus accommodate the social distancing rules. There is longer a swarm of students coming in and out of lecture theatres which will make it much easier to social distance. However, among classmates this might be more difficult. There’s nothing I want to do more than to hug all of my friends that I haven’t seen for months. It will be difficult but an elbow bump will have to do for now. We need to be vigilant when it comes to social distancing as it has been proven to work for over a century. During the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak, which killed millions of people, social distancing proved to be vital in curbing the virus. If people in the early twentieth century could social distance then so can we.
“College looks very different as buildings on campus accommodate the social distancing rules. There is no longer be a swarm of students coming in and out of lecture theatres which will make it much easier to social distance.”
Now that we have established why we must abide by social distancing and mask wearing, the hard part begins. We need to convince people who don’t follow these rules to change. Hopefully, there will be few and far between of these cases but they are inevitable. I wouldn’t suggest that you come up to any random student who is not abiding by the rules and tell them to cop on. I think it will be much more beneficial for classmates and friends to watch out for each other. If you explain to them reasons why they should wear a mask or keep their distance, they are much more likely to change their behaviour. It is also important to note that there will be some people on campus who cannot wear a mask and coming up to them and stating that they need to wear a mask might upset them especially if they don’t know you. “I think it will be much more beneficial for classmates and friends to watch out for each other. If you explain to them reasons why they should wear a mask or keep their distance, they are much more likely to change their behaviour.”
We will all miss the large lectures and hanging out on the cricket pitch this year. We will miss the crowded Arts Building where you can’t find a seat to eat your sandwich and finally decide to sit on the floor. We will miss chatting on the benches outside the perch and watching that weird roomba thing aimlessly drive in circles. We will miss meeting in tiny society rooms where the energy is palpable. We will miss all these aspects of college life but we have a new mission on our hands now. We need to unite to protect each other and as much of our college experience that is possible.
