By Madison Weber ’23, Staff Writer

Everyday, I set my alarm to ring two minutes before my first Zoom. After that Zoom, I’ll get ready for the day and by then it’s probably lunchtime. Everyday I make salmon and have an apple. Sometimes I have another class after lunch. Then I’ll do any homework and watch Netflix or tik tok. Between Zooms my sister and I  wander into each other’s room and catch up. That’s the college dream, right? 

Well, I’ll be honest, it actually was not my college dream. I genuinely miss having to wake up a half hour before class and running to not be late. I miss studying until midnight in the breakout rooms in Salerno. I miss the buffalo pizza at Cyber late-night. It feels like I worked so hard to get into my dream nursing program and school, and now I’m doing it from home. On a positive note, I have literally never had so much time to do my homework. I’ve realized how much time at college I spent doing things with friends. Now that I’m home, most of the socialization is gone and I have nothing but time to do my work. I start work back at the hospital the week of the 14th and I’m counting down the days.

 While I am glad to have heard something about the spring semester, it’s not quite the news I’d been crossing my fingers for. Especially giving that there will still be the chance that we are unable to finish the semester on campus. We’ll be spending more time in this weird, remote interlude, than we will on campus next semester even if everything goes perfectly. \

I’ve been registering for classes for the spring, I can’t help but feel a pang of disappointment. I was supposed to study abroad in Costa Rica for an extended spring semester; I’d signed up for things like holistic health, mural painting, and cultural photography as well as having the opportunity to take my Spanish speaking skills to the next level. As a nursing student, I’m only able to study abroad my sophomore spring semester and as a Spanish minor I was looking forward to having that experience. The promise of a study abroad semester was one of the biggest reasons I decided to attend Fisher, as most schools don’t allow nursing students to go at all. 

Since I’d stacked my schedule to study abroad, the only classes I needed were a P1, a CC, and a Spanish class. That’s not even enough credits to live on campus. Taking an extra class to reach 12 credits, I’ll only have two in person classes a week as the rest have been made remote. Part of me struggled to rationalize living on campus if I only have two in person classes a week. In the end I decided to live on campus because I’ve already missed so much time on campus that I figured I’d better take what I can get.  

I’ve been wondering when I’ll have another “normal” semester. When will I be able to invite friends into my dorm room, eat lunch in a booth with people, or study with friends in the library? I doubt it will be this spring. The pandemic fatigue is real. I reflect on how many potential opportunities, friends, and moments people have unknowingly missed because of COVID-19 and the guidelines surrounding it. 

Nonetheless, I continue to be appreciative of the things that I do have (extra time to do my homework, a supportive family, and two super cute dogs) and look towards the future. Even just the fact that I will never take a second at Fisher for granted again. We are going back in the spring, albeit may feel far away, and maybe by then Fisher and society will have the capabilities to keep us safe at school.