After a year of college under strict health protocols that was at times disorienting, isolating, and frustrating, local college students are returning to school. This year, while many COVID-19 restrictions have been relaxed, those feelings linger.
According to Chelsea Lemke, director of substance services at Lakes Region Mental Health Center and counselor at Lakes Region Community College, the impact the pandemic had on families, public health, and housing compounded the increased stressors students were already facing at school.
It’s taxing to be engaged in schoolwork when “everything is so up in the air at home and in the world,” Lemke said. “Everything is in flux — some students were more able to adjust to those changes than others.”
Many students found themselves in a place where their food, housing, or other crucial needs were put in jeopardy. There is pressure to do well in school, but as Lemke said, “How do you stress about college when your basic needs aren’t being met?”
Even for students not dealing with acute stress or crises, pandemic restrictions created obstacles to managing personal well-being and overall stress. “All of those things you learn about yourself in college,” Lemke said, “happen under so much pressure now.” The personal care, social growth, and stress management skills college students typically learn have been “stunted by the pandemic,” Lemke said.
Ways to connect with others and to relieve stress were “the first to go,” Lemke said, and so college, for some students, was “much more isolating than they expected.”
Cassandra Sousa of Laconia, experienced some of those obstacles. The rising sophomore at Harvard College in Cambridge, Mass., described how freshmen, normally housed together at Harvard Yard, instead had dorm rooms scattered throughout campus to help with social distancing. This, on top of classes and extracurriculars being entirely remote, made forming bonds with new people difficult and the sense of community on campus feel “diluted.”
“I just felt very isolated,” Sousa said. “There were days when I did not speak to anyone in person, except for the workers in the dining hall when I would pick up meals.”
Though Sousa was able to relieve some stress through remote participation in choir and regular journaling, she made the decision at the end of her first semester to complete her freshman year from home.
“At least, at home, I could see my friends and be in a place that I knew,” Sousa said, which made navigating the challenges of college and the pandemic easier. “I honestly was meeting the same number of people as I had been on campus.”
Some students who sought reprieve from their schools were disappointed by the resources available to them.
Clare Shanahan of Gilford spent her freshman year at New York University last year. She said the way her school managed the pandemic made student life feel chaotic. Shanahan said the school was not supportive of students who had COVID-19 and were trying to get through quarantine and also did not really help the students who were not sick to manage their schedules and well-being.
“It’s difficult to be immersed in school when everything is so all over the place,” said Shanahan.
This feeling of being disoriented, along with the cancellation of school breaks and time off, was draining for Shanahan. “Having to think about everything all of the time was so exhausting,” she said. “I just got burnt out.”
Shanahan said that, while her school offered many resources for students seeking formal mental health treatment and support, there was not much available for students seeking less formal stress relief and general emotional reprieve.
For Nicole Turpin of Laconia, close relationships with resident advisors and stress-relief offerings at the student health center, like drop-in hours with therapy dogs, were popular and helpful tools offered to students at Union College in Schenectady, N.Y.
Turpin, a rising sophomore who had mostly hybrid classes and was able to see some friends in her dorm, said she was able to make the most of her freshman year and is hopeful about this coming year.
As the school year begins, despite vaccine and mask mandates at many schools, the spread of the delta variant threatens to reach campuses everywhere. This means that while students’ schedules will mostly return to normal, it can feel like restrictions could be imposed again at any time.
This can make students feel constant anxiety or make it difficult to be fully present.
Shanahan, who transferred to Ithaca College in New York, said that while she is excited to start at her new school, there is “an impending fear of getting too comfortable” with relaxed restrictions and somewhat normal routines.
“Losing ‘normal’ and going back into lockdown would feel so much worse than starting under strict rules,” said Shanahan.
At the same time, the easing of COVID-19 restrictions this year has many students excited for opportunities big and small, especially sophomores who have not yet experienced their school environment without tight precautions.
Sousa said that despite the challenges she faced during her freshman year and the Harvard traditions she missed, she is grateful and excited for the opportunities she has this year. She is looking forward to engaging in campus life, eating in the dining hall, and being able to meet in-person for the first time with the clubs she joined a year ago.
“I’m excited to fully be a member of the communities that I’ve, technically, already been a part of,” Sousa said.
Turpin said she hopes she is able to go to office hours and form relationships with her professors.
“Everyone says this year will be better,” Turpin said. “I hope I’m not disappointed.”
Resources: Students in need of mental health support or care should contact their school to learn what resources are available. In addition, students can call 2-1-1 or reach out to Lakes Region Mental Health Center, lrmhc.org.
These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.
