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CAMERON: Today, I will be speaking with two students, and they will share their experience with the pandemic with me. They'll tell me how they think their experience might have been different if they weren't pandemic, and talk about ways that their technology use has changed or increased over the past year.

CAMERON: Hi! So thank you guys again so much for taking the time to talk with me today, and just let me know how your experience as a student doing COVID has sort of affected you. Um if you want to introduce yourselves, go ahead, whoever wants to go first.

STUDENT 1: Uh hey, I'm a 20-year-old Literature major. I'm a sophomore this year. 

STUDENT 2: Um hi, I'm 17 years old, I'm a freshman, and I’m majoring in Physics with a concentration in Philosophy, and English with a concentration in Creative Writing.

CAMERON: Okay, cool! So basically what I'm trying to figure out today is just how you guys have been most affected by the pandemic, how this has affected your studies. So if you want to just tell me a little bit, maybe how did you spend your free time before the pandemic, and how that has changed, um, with how you spend it after the pandemic?

STUDENT 1: Uh, you know I spent a lot of my weekends just on the Hill partying with a bunch of people, and so like that drastically changed when COVID hit because obviously, we can't have these massive, like, parties. And so like now I just spent a lot of time just by myself, and like sometimes I'll hang out with people, but I just really can't to the extent I did last year, my freshman year.

CAMERON: Yeah no absolutely, I relate a lot to that.

STUDENT 2: Well I mean for me, last year I was still a high school student and I went to high school actually in Colombo, Sri Lanka, so I'm not from Boulder. And I spent a lot of my free time before the pandemic doing high school things like worrying about college and doing extracurriculars, and just stopping all of that all of a sudden, it was really a change for me. And just moving countries in the middle of a pandemic was a learning experience for me in a lot of different ways, it taught me how to be independent and kind of okay with being by myself because it's just harder to be social during a pandemic. So I had to be more okay with just being alone, especially in a new country all by myself. 

CAMERON: This is a similar question but maybe um this will be more relevant for you perhaps, but how was like, a normal school day for you last year compared to a normal school day this year? Because obviously, I imagine most of our classes are online and just how does that look different than it did last year?

STUDENT 1: Yeah I would just like wake up in the morning and get dressed and have to like walk halfway across campus just to get to class and then I would just kind of chill on that side of campus for the whole day. Um and I'd usually like end up in Norlin Library because that's where a lot of my classes are were located last year. Um but this year like I only have a couple of classes in person and you're like not allowed to like stay in the building really or like around the area so I'm just kind of there for like an hour and then I have to walk back across campus to my dorm. Um, so it's like, just a very different situation now that like I'm just spending way more time in my dorm and working in my dorm whereas I would spend a lot more time just being able to work in Norlin Library.

CAMERON: Yeah, absolutely! And then I know you were in high school last year but is there any sort of key difference that you're noticing aside from just college versus high school?

STUDENT 2: Well I mean I think with COVID and with having to take a lot of my classes in my dorm, I have a few classes that are in person, but I can't imagine that they would have been the same last year if I had taken them in-person without COVID. And it sucks a little bit because I don't really have a lot of connections with people in my major, or really anyone besides people who live in my dorm because I just didn't have the opportunity to meet anyone in my classes in-person. And even though you can technically meet people over Zoom and get their socials and stuff, firstly, I have a lot of anxiety when it comes to talking to people over zoom and asking them for contact information and secondly, it's just, even if you start talking to them it sort of fizzles out after a while because you just don't have the like face-to-face connection and I feel like... If I had gone to college just simply with in-person classes fully without a pandemic, I probably would have made a lot more friends with people in my classes and in my major than I do right now.

CAMERON: Yeah, absolutely, that makes a lot of sense. I totally see where you're coming from there. And then the next thing I kind of wanted to touch on is um how has the change and how you spend your time affected either your mental, physical, and like just your health in general, if you guys feel comfortable sharing?

STUDENT 1: I mean yeah, it's been like kind of rough not being able to like see as many people as I did last year and getting to do the social events that I did last year. It's been a really just difficult change, and it sometimes feels like we're not being accommodated enough um, for this just massive upheaval that we're having to go through. Um, so that's been, like, really kind of frustrating.

CAMERON: Yeah, absolutely.

STUDENT 2: Um for me, I guess, um mentally in the beginning of the pandemic I was having I was struggling for a while because back at home in Sri Lanka, we were in a full lockdown. We weren't allowed—it was like basically illegal for us to leave our house. And so after going...just having, like, senior year, and then just having that completely ripped away, that was hard for me. And then I had to move all of a sudden to a completely new country. And in the beginning when I first moved, I was struggling a lot with homesickness and just, in general, a feeling of loneliness but I was incredibly, incredibly lucky that the people in my dorm were all fantastic and really nice, and I managed to make friends with them pretty quickly. And after a while, especially with over spring semester, since I came back I've started to feel a lot less lonely and a lot more comfortable in, like, the relationships and the community I've created here, um and I feel a lot less homesick. I do feel homesick sometimes, but that's life.

CAMERON: Yeah, no, absolutely! And I feel that's a pretty common experience first, especially leaving the country to go to college so I totally see we are coming from there. And then the other thing I wanted to touch on is in what aspect do you guys feel you have been most affected by the pandemic?

STUDENT 1: Definitely, like the social aspect of it...not being able to participate in more social activities, getting to see people, or even just getting to, like, go to class with human beings instead of just little Zoom squares on my computer screen. 

CAMERON: No, of course.

STUDENT 1: Um that's been like a massive drawback and then also just like missing out on so many experiences that I had last year and not being able to participate in them again has just been rough. 

STUDENT 2: Yeah I have to agree, the social aspect was really one of the biggest things that changed for me um, especially considering that I lost my graduation, I lost basically my last few months as a high school student. I almost barely, I only barely got my prom and that was because it was COVID wasn't as bad at the time back home so I got like a half prom basically. Um and I...  I feel like I am missing a little bit in terms of learning sometimes with Zoom, it's a bit more difficult for me to focus but I've always been an independent learner so it hasn't been affecting me as badly as my social life has been affected by COVID really.

CAMERON: And then the next kind of uh thing I wanted to focus on is with our screen time. So I imagine everyone's has gone up, um mine certainly has and apple reminds me of that every, every week, so um I was wondering is there anything that you guys have done to try and lower your screen time or anything, anything you've done to try and cope with the uh increased screen time?

STUDENT 1: I mean it's really hard to lower your screen time when the internet has become such a commodity in everyday life. All of my classes are online, all the homework I have to do are online and on canvas, and then a lot of entertainment that I can access still with COVID it's all online, 

CAMERON: Yeah.