Students attending in-person classes, speaking to each other while wearing masks indoors as part of the university requirement. Photos by Lloyd Bravo.
By Lloyd Bravo, Staff Reporter and Opinion Editor.
I was only a half-hour late for my first class due to my constant scrambling to find the room for the digital magazine course, which was conveniently located near the gymnasium and tennis courts, as all communication courses are. But, I probably should have enrolled in a physical education class, since walking and lugging my bookbag with minimal weight made my lungs burn as if I was hiking half-dome. A symptom of at-home learning.
It has been three weeks since California State University, Dominguez Hills has mandated its student body to return to classes after a minuscule dip in COVID-19 cases dropping around the country, which has made most of the nation, and myself, anxious to return to a pre-pandemic standard of living.
However, the university has implemented guidelines to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 on campus with the requirement of being vaccinated and boosted, providing proof of a negative test result, and continuing to enforce mask-wearing indoors. It just takes one person to infect everyone and conversing with peers and professors in-person seems to have outweighed the previous abundance of precautions once utilized as a key safety measure to prevent the still contagious disease.
Regardless, I still feel fear and level of uncertainty when attending in-person classes, as I am forced to confront my fears, whether I like it or not.
This looming stressor has made me miss my old anxieties. My standard fears of forgetting to turn the oven off, whether my son will resent me like I did my parents, and the constant rumination of a climate or nuclear apocalypse have only intensified. But, reverting back to a pre-2020 educational experience in the midst of an alive-and-well disease has introduced my mind to new ones.
Albeit, my personal experience arriving at CSUDH for the first time was not how I envisioned it, but it was still thrilling waiting in traffic to get to the campus, paying for the reasonable $9 single-day parking pass, and navigating while getting lost through a university I had only seen through pictures and videos online.
Though I tried to placate my worries about confronting my peers about the logistics of practicing safe habits during a raging pandemic, I was encouraged to see students, faculty, and staff abiding by the rules and regulations the university had established by social distancing and wearing masks above the nose.
The one thing I did not expect was the invigorating feeling of speaking to my classmates and bouncing ideas with other minds in a public setting. I would agree that the online course model enables the ability to hide behind a black void, incentivizing reclusive tendencies leaving lackluster engagement with fellow students. Being on campus proved that our overall environment plays a factor in our attitudes towards each other as there was an eagerness to engage –my smile was nearly bursting out of my mask.
It has become easier for me to arrive on campus without the constant black cloud of doom hanging over my head, but with more measures to relax mask mandates throughout the country and state, I am weary to fully exhale and proclaim victory over this lingering disease.
As much as I have enjoyed my newfound college experience, I am a father and husband first, and the welfare of my wife and baby are my priority. I hope there is an eventual end to this constant threat, but for now, I still would prefer to side with the abundance of caution that has kept me and my family safe for the past two years.
