“It was a nightmare to put it in one word” – Hunter students and faculty reflect on the backlash of Covid-19 on their personal and academic lives.
Today, humanity lives now as if nothing happened. Commuters shuffle into packed subway cars and buses without regard to social distancing, inhaling each other’s perfumes and muffled coughs with some, or little concern, to one’s physical health. Students have ditched Zoom for in-person classes, exchanging their sweatpants for dungarees and slippers for boots and sneakers. The occasional masked individual is spotted, a baby blue-faced phantom of ambiguity floating around public spaces. Their symptoms, or lack thereof, are unknown to the regular passerby — all that remains is a reminder of the carnage that once was. Despite the sporadic reminders of Covid-19’s existence, many people seem to continue on with everyday life without much thought to the impact of lockdown. Brushing it off as a mere misstep or hiccup in the grand scheme of things. In the wake of the pandemic, 54 % of City University of New York City students reported experiencing an increase of anxiety or depression based on a study by CUNY-SPH.
In New York City, families cooped up together, enduring waves of financial insecurity, food scarcity and shortages of other everyday amenities. Businesses and schools shut down, displacing millions of people out of their jobs and higher education. According to the New York City Comptroller, enrollment in the CUNY system has dropped by 15 %, with only an uptick in enrollment in 2023 and 2024. With all of these things to consider, one question still remains: are students and faculty still affected by the trauma they endured nearly four years ago?
In 2019, Professor Jasper Lauderdale began his teaching as an adjunct in the Film and Media Studies Department. In the past, he’s instructed at New York University, Brooklyn College and Pace University. First starting his career at the dawn of Covid, lockdown hit during his third semester as a professor forcing him to move his sessions online for remote learning.
“It was a nightmare, to put it in one word,” he said “We had to retrain and relearn how to teach in a very short frame of time.”
With only two weeks to re-establish his entire curriculum, Lauderdale found himself teaching his classes digitally, in his bedroom, standing up with his laptop propped on top of his dresser. An experience only made worse while he and his two roommates worked remotely. Regardless of his own physical discomfort, Lauderdale felt his virtual presence was an overstimulation for student’s struggling to adjust to life in isolation with their families.
“This is not what any of us signed up for, It felt unfair to invade other people’s spaces even virtually” he said.
At the start of the lockdown, Lauderdale and his students established a level of mutual understanding, working with one another to complete his course amidst the chaos of the outside world. However, as the pandemic drudged on his students began to feel fatigued by the seemingly eternal circumstances. By the second semester, Lauderdale noticed that it was harder to keep his students’ attention and more difficult to maintain the priorities and expectations that were originally set into motion. Finally, when quarantine began to lift, the professor was one of the first to volunteer for in-person teaching.
“I could not stomach the thought of staying remote,” he said “it wasn’t working, the teaching experience was diminished.”
Returning back to Hunter in Spring 2021, Lauderdale acknowledges that CUNY is trying to rebuild itself and push forward. Nonetheless, he asserts that awareness about students suffering from the effects of lockdown and how they’re impacted today should be further recognized by academia. In response to this, Lauderdale prides himself in creating a safe classroom, where students feel respected by each other. Whether they’re immunocompromised or struggling with Covid related anxieties, nothing is off the table.
“It’s about remembering the flexibility I learned throughout my couple of years teaching under Covid” said Lauderdale “We’re not through the fire.”
While faculty reassemble the pieces of in-person time lost, students across CUNY contemplate whether or not lockdown truly affected them in the long-haul.
“I miss lockdown, I think it was great,” said Amanda Scala, a senior Anthropology and Classical Studies major. A Staten Island resident, Scala gained unemployment assistance during the pandemic which held them afloat.
In their last semester of high-school, lockdown hit, causing their freshman year of college to be online. Regardless of them feeling virtually unscathed by the lockdown period, they believe their transition from high school to college was rough because of the pandemic. Leading them to feel isolated from the Hunter community and anxious to return back to in-person learning.
“Still when I’m in a crowd I feel like I should be wearing a mask but nothing extreme,” said Scala.
Nonetheless, Scala is determined to obtain the next Covid-19 shot with caution to their physical health. “I’m trying to plan it so that I have time to have side effects after,” they said.
Other students like Jezreel Managatay, a Stats and Applied Math major felt similarly, believing that the pandemic was a positive experience for them and helped them come out of their social shell.
“Over the pandemic I realized I’m a people person,” said Manatagay.
From Elhmhurst Queens, Manatagy was living with her father and sister during lockdown. Avoiding financial hardship from the halt of in-person working, her family managed to stabilize through aid from the government for her fathers kidney disease. The first wave of Covid striking down on her freshman year of high-school, she credits her school, The Hunter Science High School for uplifting her community during desolate times.
“I kinda liked school when it was online, I didn’t mind it too much,” she noted.
Participating in virtual gaming orchestrated by her school, she was able to nourish friendships through the online sphere. After lockdown, Manatagay followed up with her online friends, creating in person connections with the peers she mingled with in the metaverse. Now, attending Hunter College, she’s found most of her friends attend the same school as her, transitioning into higher education with ease.
“I used to be quiet and shy [before the pandemic] after that I realized everyone would be in different social things and I decided to become more outgoing,” said Manatagy.
However, other students felt a deeper sense of dread following the aftermath of the pandemic. differently about
“I feel like I lost the majority of my late teens,” says Fay Fan, a senior media studies and childhood education major. She credits Covid for mentally stunting her age, feeling more like a teenager than a 21-year old college student. A Queens native, Fan can’t seem to remember l if her family endured any financial stresses, or recall much of the pandemic at all.
“I can’t remember anything that went down during lockdown, I don’t recall much that happened,” she said.
Describing her lockdown experience as surreal, Fan spent quarantine with her mother and sister, looking outside onto the unusually barren streets of Rego Park. In terms of making new friends on campus, Fan thinks the odds of developing valuable connection’s at Hunter are low in a post-pandemic world. Feeling socially impaired from the many months spent at home, she admits that she’s had difficulty connecting with peers outside of school.
“Apparently in college you’re supposed to make lifelong friends” she said “It’s a difficult thing to do if you can’t talk about life outside of class.”
In regards to the effects on the younger generation, Fan believes the pandemic has left an indelible mark on the world.
“It’s something life changing,” she said. “The effects of this are going to last especially on the younger generation.”
