Photo credit: Teresa Brown
A few weeks ago I started my senior year. Unlike any scenario I could have imagined 3 years ago when I began my journey at Columbia, I find myself seated in front of my laptop, some 2,895 miles from New York City.
I had no idea what classes on Zoom were going to be like. For better or worse, I was abroad in Spring of 2020 and, due to the different academic calendar of my university in Budapest, I didn’t experience the half-semester of Zoom classes that my peers who were on campus at Columbia had to adjust to. Rather, when I was sent home in March, my classes only had a single week left and all of my professors determined that it wasn’t worth it to attempt to schedule one or two final online meetings with students suddenly scattered all over the globe.
My lack of any precedent for what this semester might feel like left me incredibly nervous. Was it going to be hard to focus in lecture classes? Would the dynamic in discussion based classes feel weird? Would there be a lot of technical glitches? These were all questions I didn’t know how to answer. However, sitting in my first class this semester, and then my second and third and so on, I was struck by how surprisingly normal it felt. Sure, I could probably write an entire post about all of the things that were different, weird or just plain don’t exist in virtual format. But there was something about seeing a sea of my peers’ faces on my laptop screen that left me with a sense of relief.
Maybe it was the fact that suddenly I felt a little less alone. I am, of course, theoretically aware of the fact that every student at Columbia is grappling with the new reality of a full semester of online learning. But to actually see my peers’ faces made the “we’re all in this together” trope feel like reality.
Or, maybe it was a more specific sense of camaraderie, one facilitated by Columbia, namely the shared experience of the Core. As a senior, I have completed most of the classes that comprise the Core, including Literature Humanities, Contemporary Civilizations, University Writing, Frontiers of Science, Art Humanities and Music Humanities. While everyone completes the Core requirements at their own pace, it is always guaranteed that any given student has already taken at least a few or is currently taking one.
The Core has been the primary means whereby I have been able to take classes with students outside of my home departments of mathematics and history. This opportunity to connect with students I otherwise might not cross paths with also facilitates the creation of a shared set of knowledge and experience amongst Columbia College students. When a student references a text that we were all required to read in our Contemporary Civilizations class, there is a clear feeling of mutual understanding. Other times, the camaraderie created through the shared experience of the Core is less obvious, but felt just as strongly.
Of course, I wish that my classes were in person and that I was able to be on campus with all of my fellow students. But, my start to this semester of virtual learning has highlighted for me the value of shared experiences such as the Core. I am optimistic that, while there will be plenty of challenges, there will also be at least a few good takeaways from this semester.