Savannah Gillis is a political science major with a secondary major in public health. Given her lifelong interest in history, politics, and government affairs, she always knew she would want to study something related to the topic. It wasn’t until her first year at UMass, when she enrolled in The Science of Health Inequality, that she became interested in public health as well.
The thing that scared me the most about remote learning was exams. I knew that being at home I would have little motivation or focus. How was I possibly ever going to ace my exams in such a foreign environment? Just last week I had my first online exam, and it was stressful, to say the least.
Ali Farina is a Sophomore theater major who hopes to one day open a non-profit to bring theater to underprivileged communities. Here's how UMass is helping prepare her to reach her goals.
Growing up, Carl McDonald's wide range of interests heavily influenced his decisions when choosing his major. Torn between his love for theater and helping others, he looked up to his sister, a fellow nurse, and the stories she would share of her daily work life.
An inevitable sense of disappointment stays with us as thousands of students transition from their once in-person classes to remote learning at home following the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as disappointing as it may be, administrations across the country continue to make these decisions for the greater good of each campus’s student body and faculty. After returning home to my small southwestern Connecticut home, I wondered how parents perceive the effects of the outbreak, including students coming home to finish their semester. So, I asked my mom how she felt about UMass's new remote, online learning.
Truthfully, I came into online learning rather skeptical. I have very little experience with Zoom, the online video platform UMass students are using to attend class, and could not imagine how this would function normally. I am so used to physically attending class. How could I possibly focus, or even have the drive, to attend class remotely? I had my doubts about how seamless this transition would be.
While we are practicing our social distancing back in the comfort of our own homes, I have been thinking about my college bucket list. One experience I hope to have when I'm back to school is taking a day trip to Northampton with my friends.
With everything that is going on in the world, the term “social distancing”, is used now more than ever. Truthfully, before what is currently happening, I did not even know that social distancing was a term let alone how crucial it would be to our wellbeing. So, what is social distancing? As defined by Johns Hopkins Medicine, social distancing is “deliberately increasing the physical space between people to avoid spreading illness”. Now, more than ever, we must follow the guidelines imposed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), even if we feel like it is inconvenient or “boring”.
One of my absolute favorite things to do at UMass is to film funny and memorable moments I have with my friends. A lot of people say that your four years in college are some of the best ones of your life. Now that I am more than halfway through them, I can say that they've been the best years of my life thus far. The reason why I like to film the funny moments I have at UMass is because then they are forever solidified.
