SJU Jnr Shares About Covid-Learning

Saint Joseph’s accounting major – class of 2023 shares his experiences with a college education during the pandemic, and how having in-person classes is improving  his collegiate experience and education.

Start Talking SJU is a social media impact campaign that encourages members of the Saint Joseph’s University community to engage each other by discussing difficult, yet important topics, that are vital for a healthy, open, inclusive campus. Our current topic is TBD. 

More videos like this one http://transition.starttalkingsju.com. You can also see our prior campaigns: Living in Fear, Striving for Hope (http://livinginfear.starttalkingsju.com), Attacked (http://attacked.starttalkingsju.com), Belonging (http://belonging.starttalking.com), and Mental Health (http://mentalhealth.starttalking.com).

This video was co-created with the person depicted who reviewed and signed a consent form granting permission to share this story online. 

If you are experiencing any personal or social effects due to COVID and/or a return to campus life, the university has resources that can help, including:

The Office of Student Outreach and Support (https://sites.sju.edu/sos/); the SJU COVID website (https://www.sju.edu/hawk-hill-ready); if you are experiencing food insecurity, HawkHub (https://clubs.sju.edu/hawkhubclub); The Bias Activity Review Group, which connects to Public Safety (https://sites.sju.edu/oid/bias/); CAPS (610-660-1090); TitleIX titleIX@sju.edu; REPP (*confidential support) 610-733-9650 (24 hr. Peer Helpline); or SJU Public Safety 610-660-1111.

A complete transcript of the video reads as follows: 

Yeah well like honestly Covid pretty much affected the entirety of sophomore year having to wear masks everywhere and not being able to bring guests into dorm buildings, so it was honestly a weird atmosphere being on campus when you had the option to stay online or if you wanted to stay back home. And quite frankly, I wasn’t the type of person to learn virtually at home, there were just too many distractions going on. 

So I decided to come back to campus, and the university did a really great job of making sure the student life is still alive here, while the peak of Covid was going on. Sure, the classrooms were socially distanced, and as a tour guide we could only do one family per tour guide, so they were still trying to maximize the efforts of still making it a university, but within following the Covid restrictions. 

When Saint Joe’s decided you can come back to campus and do your education in person or you can opt to stay online, I took the chance and said I’m going back in person because I’m the type of person that learns more better in the classroom rather than just through zoom, because there’s so many distractions that you can get though. Because it was so easy with online learning. You can simply log on and say you’re here for attendance and just mute yourself and turn off your camera and do whatever you want. I’m the type of person that, when I come in a classroom, in person, I’m more focused to the lecture with the professor teaching through PowerPoints or the white boards, and I’m in the zone and I’m actually learning. So when coming back to campus last year and doing that in person learning, it was a struggle because we had to be socially distanced around people. And quite frankly, the professors would not speak up because of the masks obviously. So it was a struggle, but they adapted to it when we were able to go throughout the entire semester. And then, you know, when we came back in the spring, it was just like “ok, we can do the same thing like we did last semester but make it better” and now that things are slowly getting back to normal, hopefully, it’s almost like it’s second hand nature that you can do all this together naturally.