SJU Senior Discusses her Transition Back to SJU

A Saint Joseph’s University Senior discusses her transition back to school after a year of remote learning. She talks about her extremely busy schedule and the negative effect that it has had on her. She talks about how she feels like her social life is being minimized due to school work, work, and extracurricular activities. She stated “I feel like I used to be able to go out to dinner on a Tuesday night with friends, now I just don’t have the time.”

More videos like this one can be found at http://transition.starttalkingsju.com. You can also see our prior campaigns: Living in Fear, Striving for Hope, Attacked, Belonging, and Mental Health.

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
the SJU COVID website;
HawkHub, if you are experiencing food insecurity;
The Bias Activity Review Group, which connects to Public Safety;
Counseling and Psychological Support (CAPS; 610-660-1090)
TitleIX titleIX@sju.edu
REPP (*confidential support) 610-733-9650 (24 hr. Peer Helpline)
SJU Public Safety 610-660-1111.

Transcript:

“I’m a Senior Food Marketing Major with a Leo Minor.
I didn’t think it would be a big adjustment, coming back to campus after being online, but with classes being in person I feel like it’s been a little harder to manage other things outside of school. Like, going to babysitting or working at the writing center. Since everything is in person now, it’s a little bit harder to manage my time driving back and forth and being at the library until 10 pm sometimes because I have to work at the writing center. So I guess I just didn’t expect my schedule to be as busy as it is right now and I definitely feel like I’m getting burnt out from constantly being on the go and never being at home. Especially after being at home for two years straight basically. So that’s definitely been hard, not having as much time off from activities.

I don’t have a hard time balancing it, but I think it does negatively affect me in the way I come home and go right to sleep and wake up and do the same thing over again tomorrow. I just feel like I can never get a break and I feel like as a college student, that’s not how college is supposed to be. I feel like I’m supposed to be able to have fun and go out with my friends to dinner on a Tuesday night but like that’s not the reality of things because I’m so busy and by the time I get home, I have work I have to do for classes. I have to sit down for two hours and make sure I have everything done.

I don’t really think it has had a negative affect on my mental health. But like I said, I definitely am the type of person that needs like a few hours by themselves to like relax and recharge during the day, so when I don’t get that, I definitely think it effects my mood and the way I go about my day. Even throughout the week and stuff like that.”