With the arrival of the 2020-2021 school year comes the question: is it safe to go back? While all Montgomery County schools and most primary and secondary institutions across the nation are moving forward with virtual classes, some colleges and universities have struggled with their chosen reopening plans. In fact, many colleges that originally opened for the school year have now closed due to outbreaks originating from student parties. According to The New York Times, at least 251 cases of COVID-19 have already come from parties at fraternities and sororities around the country.
While college is expected to be one of the best times of one’s life — living independently from parents, interacting from peers and professors, and having heaps of fun during social events — it is hard to enjoy one’s college years while in quarantine. Many colleges aren’t throwing events in person, instead doing it all online. This makes it harder for incoming freshmen to make friends, let alone be active clubs and other programs. Instead, they have to spend all day online, without being able to do many of the activities they could have done before.
However, colleges should not be reopening. While it may be tiring to sit at home all day, the experience is actually not much worse than how some colleges are operating through in-person and hybrid learning right now. The schools that are open have students go through regular testing for COVID-19 and require weeks of quarantine only to allow them to sit in their dorm room for classes, without access to many of the social aspects of college dorm life that they could have met under normal conditions.
Sure, one could walk around with friends or sit outside, but the truth is that the majority of the day will still be spent indoors and by themselves. There is also the added risk of contracting the coronavirus if the college has a big town next to it or is in the city, as the general public around them most likely have not taken the necessary safety precautions that the students have been required to take.
Last week, I visited Penn State University. When we got there, we found out that its administration had required that students get tested and quarantine for about two weeks in advance. Once on campus, students are still allowed to roam the downtown shopping area, where some people have not gotten tested and are not wearing masks. While it is commendable that they are having students get tested, these safety measures would be to no avail if students could get COVID-19 anyway.
Already, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill has sent their students home after discovering outbreaks from dorm parties, and University of Notre Dame has moved students to remote learning after its own outbreaks.
All in all, going to college in this current virtual setup will not be all that different from staying at home and will definitely be safer for students. There is truly no point in going to college in person if students always have to stay isolated and still have a higher risk of getting COVID-19. Only once the situation with COVID-19 improves should students be able to go back. In the meantime, it is safer for everyone if schools stay closed.
Article by Esther Markov of Walter Johnson High School
Graphic by Ha-Tien Nguyen of Winston Churchill High School