Sharing a meal isn’t the only way to get to know others. Photo credit: Isabel Wong.
When I found out seniors wouldn’t be allowed back on campus this past semester, I was disappointed for a lot of reasons. Apple picking, on my bucket list since I was little, would have to wait for a post-graduate fall; pumpkin month, in which we stuffed October full of pumpkin purée, would be noticeably less orange; even my post-finals, pre-flyout panic packing session frizzled fondly from faraway.
Everyone has their own memories and NYC to-do list spreadsheets, regardless of whether this past semester was to be their first or last. For me, another reason I was sad to be stuck behind a screen this past semester was not just the physical distance between me and my friends but also how difficult such an arrangement would make meeting new people. After three years of college, I finally felt like I was in a position to introduce myself to people. With smaller, more specialized classes starring repeat faces, I felt like I might actually be able to strike up a conversation with one of those familiar faces after class or as we passed one another on College Walk. I love the friends I’ve already made, but realizing that once I graduate I may never have the chance to get to know so many of my peers made me want to try to get to know them better now.
As it turns out, an online semester doesn’t preclude one from making new friends, and group research, I’ve learned, is one way to forge these new friendships. Despite the sometimes tricky dynamics of dividing up tasks and adjusting to different work styles and, now, the difficulty of finding a time to meet across time zones, choosing to do a group, rather than an individual, research project for one of my seminars was one of the best decisions I made this semester. That’s not to say there weren’t difficulties. Of course there were. Trying to decide on a topic within a group, even when it was only three people, was tough as we talked around one another in circles. Then, there was the question of what form we wanted our final product to take, an academic paper or a creative project.
But these bumps were easily overshadowed by the encouragement we gave one another and all the little conversations we had while working together. The short check-ins each time we met and before we got down to business, moments during which we celebrated that 25-page paper someone just submitted or someone’s walk that morning, breathing in the refreshing feel of the air. Freaking out together over shared confusion or when finals just felt never-ending and overwhelming all at once so that all we could do was let Zoom swallow our collective stressed scream. These moments are hard to come by, no matter how small the seminar. It’s these group research projects, then, that can serve as more than just group learning opportunities. Rather, they can serve as reasons to check in with another, to get to know one another, to laugh together.