Ten feet from the classroom

Jack Marquard
5/4/21

For the last two and a half semesters, instead of getting out of bed and beginning his walk
to class, Washington State University senior, Blake McAllister, gets out of bed and walks 10 feet
to his desk.

“One thing I’ve always loved about being a student here was walking to campus and
seeing the flood of students around me and feeling involved and a part of a bigger community,”
McAllister said. “That walk to campus was a great way to get in the education mindset and feel
prepared.”

McAllister hasn’t made that walk from his house to campus in over a year. Completing a
finance degree from his bedroom has not only been a challenge academically, but socially as
well.

“It’s not the experience I was looking for and hoping for when I was a freshman. I
remember seeing seniors really enjoying their last few months, taking in Pullman and the campus
with its red brick buildings,” McAllister said. “I feel like I was robbed of my experience as a
senior.”

Although the pandemic took away many norms, traditions, and pageantries of his senior
year, McAllister said he’s proud of himself for working through this challenging year and seeing
it through to the end.
 Working from home may have been more challenging for McAllister than other students
due to his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. He said working from home made it hard to
separate his work from play, but those obstacles only make his graduation more meaningful.

“I’m not closing my door on education, but it’s definitely the end of a chapter. I’m really
proud of myself,” McAllister said. “I’m going to miss it [WSU], but I’m never going to stop
learning.”

As a self-proclaimed people person, McAllister said he’s excited for the next chapter in
his life where he’ll have more face-to-face interaction in his new job as an event marketing
specialist at Techtronic Industries.

An extended spring break

WSU students have not been in the classroom since March 2020, when they left Pullman
for what they thought would be an extended spring break. That once long vacation now stands at
14 months of virtual learning which weighs heavily on all students, including senior, Catie
Sergis.

“I thought I’d come back right after spring break and I definitely thought I’d see
professors again and be on campus, now it’s just weird that we’re leaving,” Sergis said. “We
never got to go back.”

Sergis, a resident advisor in Regents Hall, said she misses the intangibles of being on
campus. Whether it be walking into Todd Auditorium, getting a drink from the SPARK, or
chatting with professors before class begins, she’s missed the vibrant campus life.

Ultimately, Sergis said she’s survived the last year and is excited to graduate this week.
She’s less concerned about herself and more so with the freshmen she’s gotten to know in her
dorm.

“With dorm life, they [freshmen] just sit in their rooms alone. For the first half of the
semester, they weren’t even allowed to go into each other’s rooms, now they’re allowed to, but
looking back on my freshmen year I made so many friends in the dorm,” Sergis said. “I think a
lot of them have already given up; I know freshmen who went home early, transferred to more
COVID-open states, and seem to have given up on having a normal college experience, at least
for this year.”

Sergis fears that the culture of WSU and college in general have been changed forever, to
at least some extent. She’s unsure of what that impact will look like, but she remembers it was
the older students who showed her what a college environment looks like, academically and
socially.

“You learn how to do things in college by watching the older kids, but we’re going to be
gone,” Sergis said. “I don’t know if it will ever be the same school that we went to when we
were freshmen.”

New perspectives

When the pandemic hit, Zach Swenson, 22, was studying abroad in Barcelona, when he
quickly had to leave the country and return to the United States.

Swenson hasn’t been inside a WSU classroom since December 2019. The absence of
face-to-face interaction has left him grappling with the limited time he has left in Pullman.

“I miss it, I took for granted going to class every day,” Swenson said. “I miss having that
routine of getting up, showering, and getting to have that opportunity to go to class and see my
friends along the way.”

He said although the pandemic has been challenging, it’s provided him with opportunities
for new founded patience for himself as well as a new appreciation for life’s gifts, including his
family and friends.

“Everyone knows we’re all going through the same issues so it’s important to take a step
back and take a breath,” Swenson said.

The friendships he’s built in the first three years have gotten him through this final online
year. Although it’s been difficult to have lived through a once-in-a-generation pandemic, he said
he’s grateful for the people he’s spent it with.

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