May 20, 2021
Part 1 Pandemic Interview
The first pandemic interview I conducted was with my friend Trinity who is currently a freshman at Siena college. As I interviewed a few freshmen in college I wanted to get a better understanding of how it was being a senior in high school when the pandemic first started, and what other aspects of their pandemic experience was like.
Kaylyn: As a senior in high school when the pandemic started, what would you say was the biggest challenge in switching to online classes to finish off your high school career?
Trinity: I would say overall that the biggest challenge was that schoolwork was manual and often we really did not meet online so we mostly had to do everything on our own. Teachers would update work on Canvas and then we just had to get things done for certain dates, but it was also often challenging because some classes didn’t update or were not very clear.
K: Did you develop a sort of “quarantine routine” as time went on?
T: In the first months really no as I would mostly get work done at any time and didn’t have a strict schedule. But as time went on and I started working again that really contributed to me creating a sort of schedule and times when I had to get things done.
K: Were you working or looking for work when the pandemic started? If so, how were you affected?
T: I did have a job before the pandemic started which was in food service, a restaurant, but when the pandemic hit our restaurant was closed for months. After a few months though the restaurant started doing something called “brunch in a box” so I got to go back into work to help with that, but it was still not as many hours and not as much pay but that was fine. I was lucky though because most of the adult employees I worked with had to take unemployment because when the pandemic hit it was so rough.
K: How did the pandemic and isolating overall affect your mental wellbeing?
T: Overall the pandemic made me go outside more which was good for my mental health but I was obviously still very attached to technology because of online school. When everything started closing the social part of my life really went away, even though I have a big family, I still lost friendships and distancing was very hard. When I got COVID later in the pandemic at college I couldn’t go home for ten days so that felt very trapping and like I couldn’t escape, so that was very hard. Overall though in a way the pandemic trained me to cope better with certain emotions but was still extremely hard.
K: Did you learn anything new/take anything good out of the time you spent in quarantine, whether related to school or not?
T: I still got to go to college so I was lucky for that. I guess I learned to create and make a routine that adapts to the pandemic, and that is definitely something that will be hard to escape when quarantining and the pandemic is over.
