SJU Senior Discusses Transitioning Back To Campus

A SJU senior discusses his personal experience of his transition it terms of class work and time management. In addition, he reflects on his zoom classes and how chaotic it really was.

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 transitioning back to campus.

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:

I’m a senior here at Saint Joseph’s University. I’m a major in finance with a minor in business intelligence and analytics and economics. I feel that compared to last year, there’s a lot more restrictions, and being remote obviously had its ups and downs, but I think it’s good to be back in person in the classroom. I just like the setting of being able to talk to your professors, talk to your peers, you know, understand something. You just reach out to them a lot more accessible than when you’re in a classroom setting I feel. So the overall transition back to campus, it’s been a little bit better for you. Yeah, I thought it was. I thought it was quite easy. I was like, I loved going to in-person classes. I just like, like the setting. I just like the atmosphere and everything and like going to Zoom was obviously a shock to everybody, and like, it took a little time to adapt, and like some people, I don’t really think fully adapted to learning Zoom, so that’s, like, why I it’s like personally where I feel like I fit back in because like I was kind of just like hoping as soon as Zoom was over, I can’t wait to get back into class, and I feel like some other students may have become too dependent on Zoom, and now, like, they just despise going back into a classroom setting. So I feel like it’s like a trade off between, like, what kind of students you are and like for me personally, like, I’m like, hands on, I need to be there and like, I need be learning. So I just prefer the classroom setting. Have there been any challenges returning back to school? Yeah. With regard to like, structuring your work time, with Zoom, I feel like you had a lot more free time, to do other work, maybe like within a Zoom class, or like Skip — or like skip a Zoom class and then do homework for that class. And like with Zoom, there was a lot of asynchronous — asynchronous classes, so, you’re only going to class like once a week and then you’re doing assignments, and like now transitioning back like, you have to be in-person, like you have to wake up Like, commute, figure that– food, everything? So there’s a lot of factors now that were left out due to Zoom and being remote.