Covid-19 Under the Radar: The Class of 2025’s Rocky Start 

By Hallie Finkelstein

Published in Slope Media printed magazine Spring 2022

Covid-19 has greatly affected all of our lives over the past two years. Every class of students has lost opportunities and missed out on important life events. Most people may have the perception that the class of 2024 suffered the most out of all the current students at Cornell: missing out on almost the entirety of their freshman year and having to start a new chapter of their lives in a world where nothing was normal. There is nothing that can compare to the class of 2024’s surreal first year of college; but just as everything seemed to be finally going back to normal, the Covid-19 variants struck again and the class of 2025 has borne a similar toll during their freshman year. 

We entered the 2021-2022 school year at a time where Covid appeared to be on the decline. We thanked our lucky stars that we had been born just one year later and were able to have our parents and family members move us into our new college dorms. Although still wearing masks, we were hopeful that things would get better. However, once classes began, students were overwhelmed by the high expectations and significant quantity of work that they had not experienced in nearly two years. With many coming from an entire senior year online, or at minimum hybrid online, we weren’t used to attending classes in person and having this many responsibilities. Club meetings had been on zoom, and assignments and tests were completely virtual. This adjustment was difficult and caused significant stress for students who hadn’t experienced normalcy in almost two years. In addition to this stress, the surge of Covid cases in the beginning of the school year was extremely unsettling for students who had to miss 10 days of classes and socialization at the start of their first year of college. As others were meeting people and trying to form close relationships, students with Covid were isolated for 10 days, further burdening in the process of adjusting to a new environment. The social adjustment was greatly impacted by Cornell’s stern covid rules. Rooms with a single resident were allowed one other person in their room and doubles were allowed to have four students total. This limited students from meeting friends in large groups and forced them into the unintentional exclusion of other potential friends in fear of getting in trouble with RA’s. College is normally very daunting for first year students, but constant covid outbreaks and the fear of contracting the virus made the process that much more difficult. 

The beginning of college is a time when teenagers are supposed to experience freedom that they never had before and foster relationships with their peers. From an outside perspective it may seem that freshmen were able to experience normalcy, but this was not the case due to Cornell’s strict Covid rules. Students were constantly getting in trouble for trying to adjust and assimilate: having their school IDs scanned for stepping into the common room without a mask or having more than four people in their room. If you forgot to make your weekly PCR, you got locked out of Canvas and couldn’t complete assignments. All these “consequences” for not complying with Cornell’s covid protocols were a detriment to students’ mental health. In the fall of 2020, before vaccines were available, the main concern was to keep students from getting Covid-19. However, after almost two years of a life completely focused on avoiding covid, many in the class of 2025 became fed up with social isolation. With the peace of mind that everyone they were around was vaccinated, students wanted to meet new friends.

For a short while, starting in October, covid cases seemed to decline and students had the normal college experience that they had so longed for. This was until December 2021 when the Omicron variant struck Cornell’s campus. With finals around the corner, many students were  testing positive for covid. Cornell was not prepared for the massive surge. Students who tested positive waited hours, and sometimes even days, before being sent to isolate, posing problems for roommates who desperately wanted to stay away to avoid catching the virus. This took a mental toll on students during the final examination period as they were frantically seeking a safe place to sleep while studying for finals. 

We then had the late start of second semester and the beginning of online classes. The Class of 2025 had never experienced online classes from their dorms, having to worry about roommates and other distractions while classes were going on. Students then had to quickly transition back into in-person classes after having been online for the beginning weeks of the semester. 

All students at Cornell University have suffered losses and mental health tolls from the Covid-19 pandemic. While it may not have been so apparent to the rest of the students and faculty at Cornell, the lives of students in the class of 2025 have not been easy. After two long years, it is time that students begin to get back to their normal lives; Cornell’s decision to lift the mask mandate in certain areas of campus has already helped to do this. With nearly one tumultuous year under their belts, Cornell freshmen can only hope to achieve some amount of normalcy in the next three years.