Students Open Up About Covid

PHOENIX - Susie Papadopoulos stepped on the campus of Creighton University in 2021 as a freshman with National Honor Society credentials from her senior year in high school. Within a few months, she was failing. The problem, she said, was moving from an environment in which her senior classes met for only a few minutes online each week to entirely in-person classes at a large university.

For a lot of current high school students, the last bit of a normal approach to school was either their freshman year or well before their freshman year of high school. They lost a year and a half of social interactions and fully getting that one-on-one time with their teachers and peers. These are core years that are just a gap taken out of their high school time. The same can be said for the freshman and sophomore college students, they didn’t get the preparation for that transition from high school to college.

These students are now required to go back to in-person and adjust quite abruptly to something that they aren’t used to for quite some time. They went from sitting in front of a computer screen, zoning out their teachers, and hiding behind an intentionally turned-off camera, to now being face to face with their teachers and struggling to participate.

The Students’ Perspective

When talking to some students there was pretty much an overall agreement that being online makes or made them feel unprepared for life after high school. Sunrise Mountain junior, Kendyl Woolfolk, said “I feel like I don’t know everything I need to know for senior year and college,” continuing on by explaining how she feels like her staff members have quit on them in a sense and aren’t as passionate about pushing the students to be more motivated when they came back. Similarly, Darien Torres, a junior at Pueblo High School, said that she feels less prepared for college since she spent her freshman, sophomore, and junior years online. Torres said “I feel like I never got to experience my high school year,” continuing on with “I feel like I didn’t learn much online as when I went to in-person school.”

Susie Papadopoulos who is a sophomore at Creighton University explained how when she was in high school her classes only met for 15 minutes per week and it started to become something she got used to and then added to it that summer was starting soon, so when she transitioned to an almost fully in-person university, “it was a dramatic change that I was completely unprepared for.” Papadopoulos added to her experience that in the span of just a couple of months she went from having classes that were optional to attend to trying to stay afloat and failing classes, saying “it was alarming having just graduated being in National Honors Society to failing classes,” and “I didn’t know what to do and had such a difficult time trying to get back into the swing of things.”

When talking about their staff members both Woolfolk and Papadopoulos shared their frustrations with those members. Woolfolk says that her teachers use covid as an excuse for why the students don’t know certain things, “...which kinda annoys me because then they don’t teach us the things we should know.” Papadopoulos said that her teachers were more so understanding if anything, “staff members, in general, were more understanding and said things like ‘I understand it a hard year take it easy on yourself and take some time off’ instead of pushing me to do better, which was kind of upsetting but relieving at the same time.” Papadopoulos compares this with what she is going through now in college saying “a lot of my university professors didn’t really seem to care and treated it like a normal year and assigned a regular amount of homework, if you were struggling you were supposed to take the time to do better, if not it was not on them.” She said that the “lack of empathy” was jarring because she didn’t really expect it since we were still in the middle of a life-changing pandemic.

When talking about the differences between school pre-COVID versus post-COVID, Torres said “I realize that it was easier to learn and socialize with friends and teachers,” she is still doing online classes and won’t be back until her senior year so she said that she couldn’t accurately differentiate between the two. Woolfolk said “I think school is definitely different, I feel like teachers are more lenient but this means the students don’t work as hard and get lazy,” she added that she is also a victim of being lazy and procrastinates a lot of her work because she knows that she can still get a good grade without putting in as much effort. Papadopoulos on the other hand said that she doesn’t see much of a difference from when she went to school pre-COVID to now going to school post-COVID, her university doesn’t have a mask mandate and no restrictions related to COVID. Papadopoulos said she feels that “schools, especially higher education, have felt a push to get back to normal quicker because their students are paying high prices to be there and be in class getting a normal education.”

The Staff's Perspective

I got into contact with Dr. Bobra Crockett, who is a business communications and marketing professor at Scottsdale Community College. When talking about the impact COVID made on her job, Crockett explained that when the pandemic happened the faculty had to pivot to online teaching, saying “Part of my job is training faculty how to use technology, so while online teaching was an easy transition for me, others struggled.” The impact on students however was slightly different than just having to adjust teaching online. Some had to find new jobs because their workplaces were impacted, while also navigating through school and the current state of the world during that time.

Crockett has been teaching since 2006, so when looking at the changes now compared to a pre-COVID year, she said that she doesn’t know if COVID can be the sole cause of the changes in students, because “each generation seems less prepared for college.” Things she did notice about teaching now is that students have adapted to online learning and the convince of it. Her students preferred online learning and that preference was a lot of reasons but the main one being that a lot of them were unemployed for quite some time so they “didn't want to give up their new jobs as they are still recovering financially.” Crockett went on to say “I did notice that my more introverted students participated more online than in-person,” and “Students with disability accommodations performed better online.” She said since she was working from home during this time, it allowed for her to meet with students throughout the day and into the evening, whenever they needed her. This system ended up being better for students like those mentioned because it allowed for more one-on-one time. She went on to explain that she “insisted on asynchronous classes so students could work at their convenience,” saying that they were already going through a lot personally and she just wanted her class to be flexible for those students that would need to catch up at any moment throughout the course.

When it comes to higher education, she said she's not sure if the students felt that they lost out on vital years. Crockett continues to say that some students missed out on extracurricular activities and school events, but “they were still able to gather socially in study groups, dorms, etc.” Looking at her current students, she doesn’t sense a lack of motivation with them, if anything she noticed he introverted students are more active and engaged because of it. Crockett said that she thinks it taught them a valuable lesson in life actuality. “Things change. The ability to adapt to change is a good life skill.” Her students, much like everyone else in the world, went through a history book moment and they can use the experiences they went through for the future.

Sidebar

1. Why am I doing this story?

• I am doing this story because I think that while we are transitioning into a post-COVID world, there are still some lingering effects on students. I definitely feel those effects and I know many people in my own circle back home feel those effects too. I think that it is important to highlight that some areas in life are still struggling and may need a little bit of a push to help get back on the right track. From my own experience, I was so excited to get to senior year and do all the things you hear about from other senior classes while you’re an underclassman and to graduate and go to college, but when I got to my senior year I spent the whole year behind a screen. I wasn’t as motivated to apply for colleges, especially with the whole “no SATs scores are required when applying” thing. I knew I had the grades to get into the colleges I applied to, considering the high school that I went to, so I just didn’t feel challenged to go out and get the best score I could if they weren’t going to look at it. Similar to the students that I interviewed, I just didn’t feel the push and I knew I could get away with not trying as hard on my assignments because the teachers themselves weren’t trying as hard to teach us. I was once a focused, honor-roll student, who slacked off because I knew it wouldn’t jeopardize me in any way at that point in time, but now it kinda has as it made me a way bigger procrastinator and I find myself not paying attention as much when it comes to in-person and online classes.

1. Where did this story idea come from?

• I wanted to see if this feeling of not being prepared for life after high school was a thing felt amongst other people and not just the people from where I am from. I was intrigued to know how the school operated out here in Arizona compared to California because I had this preconceived idea just based on the politics out here.

1. Who did I interview?

• I interviewed two high school juniors who were taking a tour of ASU. I thought that it was the perfect opportunity to get some feedback and interviewed them as they are prospective students. Then I interviewed a college sophomore who was out here visiting her friend who goes here, her friend was showing her around the campus and I went up and asked if I could interview them, the friend wasn’t interested but the girl I ended up interviewing was very passionate about what she had to say. I also interviewed Dr. Bobra Crockett who is a professor at Scottsdale Community College. I think her input really added the perspective of an educator and what she did for her students during this time.

---

Photo Taken By: cottonbro from Pexels