With Penn State classes online due to coronavirus concerns, students try to settle into new normal
When Najee Rodriguez headed off to the Netherlands for Penn State’s spring break to visit a high school friend, he thought it would be the trip of a lifetime.
A week later, Rodriguez found himself temporarily stranded in Amsterdam buying a last-minute flight to Florida amid an international travel ban. He didn’t know if he would have a place to stay once he reached the United States.
In the aftermath of Penn State’s decision last week to suspend in-person classes until April 6, many students like Rodriguez had their spring break and spring semester plans thrown into a tailspin that’s shown no signs of slowing.
Ryan Lam, a Penn State student from Hong Kong, said he counts himself lucky to have been living in his off-campus apartment during spring break when Penn State announced the changes.
But as a senior broadcast journalism major hoping to cover sports after graduation, Lam said most of his classes and extracurricular activities will take a significant hit.
“I’m taking three classes this semester and two of them are basically production,” he said, adding, “those are really hard classes to do something or instruct without face to face or being in the studio together.”
He said instructors are managing as best they can, but instruction suffers when students can’t access their production equipment in the studio on campus. Cancellation of the Big Ten and NCAA championships have also ground Lam’s portfolio to a halt.
“I came here to be a college student. I love sports, I came here to cover it, to watch it and now it’s a very unfortunate situation,” he said. “It’s more important in the concerns of public health, (but) that (college) experience is kind of taken away from me.”
COVID-19 affects global operations
Penn State has taken many precautions against the spread of COVID-19 as new cases rise globally.
In addition to moving classes online for two weeks, Penn State canceled all education abroad trips across continental Europe in light of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issuing a notice to avoid nonessential travel to Level 3 countries in Europe on March 11. The university pulled hundreds of students out of programs in Italy earlier this month and recalled all university-affiliated travel to the United Kingdom and Ireland on Sunday.
Last week, Penn State also announced all summer education abroad courses and university-affiliated student group travel are canceled through August.
Rodriguez, a freshman at Penn State studying international relations and geography, received notifications of the university’s switch to online classes through an email, but only had limited Wi-Fi while in Amsterdam to gather more information.
At 2 a.m. Thursday, he was awoken by texts from his friends notifying him of President Donald Trump’s ban on travel from Europe. Though administration officials later clarified American citizens and permanent residents were exempt from the ban, Rodriguez said general confusion and inability to reach the airlines led him to believe he would be stuck in the Netherlands for a month.
When he arrived in the United States, he said, he was screened for the virus by filling out a form and having his temperature checked. The scene was chaotic and officials from the CDC seemed unsure of what to do, he said.
Lam, too, said he’s worried to return home to Hong Kong for a wedding in May. He fears he will have trouble reentering the United States, where he hopes to find a job after graduation.
“Logistically, it’s a little bit tricky and now with this (online class switch) ... I have very uncertain job prospects,” he said.
Syncing up across time zones and lives
While Penn State requires online classes to be held at the same time, many professors and instructors are choosing to use their class time as a question and answer period or are posting lectures and assignments for students to complete on their own time.
Vinisha Prajapati, a third-year student set to graduate in May, managed to get a flight home to Fresno, California, after hearing the news of classes moving online.
Now, one of her 10 a.m. classes has become a 7 a.m. class when factoring in the time change on the West Coast.
“It just kind of messes (up) my sleep schedule a little bit,” she said. “I woke up five minutes before class started and I just logged on. And then as soon as it was done, I took a nap.”
As a biology major hoping to study medicine, Prajapati finds that some of her classes don’t translate well to online work. Students in her organic chemistry lab, for example, won’t do experiments anymore. Instructors will conduct the experiments, then send students the data, which they will use to write reports.
“I think everyone’s just genuinely confused. A lot of us are just not used to this online formatting and a lot of classes shouldn’t be online but are forced to,” she said.
The rush to leave
Prajapati, who was on campus during spring break, had time to gather her essential school supplies before heading home, but Rodriguez did not.
“I only brought five outfits (to Europe),” he said. Then, he added, “I have everything in my dorm. I have school supplies, I have technology there.”
Since he is a freshman living in a residence hall, Rodriguez would have only been allowed a 30 minute window to collect all his things on Friday, Sunday or Monday between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
“I don’t have anybody who can get (my stuff) for me,” he said. “I’m not close with my roommates. I went to Florida because I had no choice. I had five outfits and my laptop.”
While Rodriguez is from Orlando, Florida, he isn’t on good terms with his family and had no place to stay. Flying to Pennsylvania to retrieve his things and then to Florida would have cost him hundreds of dollars extra, which he wasn’t able to afford. He is now staying with a friend’s family in Florida while he self-quarantines for 14 days after his reentry into the country.
“Not every person has, like, a safety net to go back to in emergency situations,” he said. He added, “I literally found (my friend) the day that I was leaving. I asked for someone to pick me up at the airport because my flight would get in at 12:30 a.m.”
Penn State is offering an emergency fund to support students with housing, transportation, remote learning and other basic needs during the COVID-19 outbreak. As of Monday, Comcast is offering two months of free internet services to “qualified low-income customers.”
Prajapati said she’s grateful to be able to spend time at home, but misses her friends she was unable to say goodbye to.
“Obviously I’m disappointed that I don’t get to spend this time with a lot of my friends who I don’t know how much I’ll see after I graduate,” she said. “It’s nice to be home but I’d much rather be at State.”
While students say communication from professors and the administration has been hit or miss, with some departments communicating better than others, they recognize it’s a confusing situation for everyone involved.
“For this to be a very unprecedented situation, it’s just hard to put any blame on anyone, or the university,” said Rodriguez. “It’s adapting, it’s evolving and I do think they’re doing the best that they can, but it’s just frustrating for the students because there’s so many factors that the university couldn’t account for.”
To make a gift to the student emergency fund, visit app.mobilecause.com/e/IUo4ag?vid=5y5b3.
This story was originally published March 16, 2020 at 6:05 PM.
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