Recently, Rutgers University announced that, religious and medical exemptions aside, it will require students to be vaccinated against COVID-19 before returning to campus in the fall. Even with the end of the pandemic in sight, Rutgers has not taken for granted that its health situation on campus will get better. […]

As first-years’ midterms come and go, most of us feel stressed. For students like me who are on campus for our first full semester, midterm stress may be exacerbated by homesickness and irritability.

As a first-year, I often hear upperclassmen ask, “What is it like? How are you taking it?” Although I can’t speak for my entire class, here’s my take as a first-year on campus: From my one online class in the fall to a full course load on campus, my first-year spring has been challenging so far.

Taking my first college class, a seminar on essay writing, completely online has left me wondering how different my experience was from an in-person one. I found myself even less motivated than I was my last semester of high school when the pandemic first hit.

Eight months have passed since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, but sometimes it feels like we never left March. Among fear, anxiety and mind-deadening boredom, the pandemic has upended our sense of time.

In three days, 300 clubs, 300 Zoom links. A daunting Google Spreadsheet.  Over the three-day Brown Student Activities Fair, I joined a scant nine of the 300 some student activities links. I ended up leaving nearly all Zoom calls thinking, “I’d love to join on campus, but I won’t join virtually.”

In late August, I rode the train — the light rail — through Minneapolis. Collapsed buildings, piles of rubble and boarded-up stores blurred past my window. Minneapolis, which I had known for a decade, was a city that I had never seen before: It was ravaged.