Storyteller: Trinity DeCaire
Faith is a nineteen-year-old full-time college student, majoring in illustration. Faith first got word of COVID-19 in her Natural Science course around the time when Wuhan was in the news for going into lock down. Her professor had some experience and knowledge with COVID-19, leading to her and her class having many discussions about the topic and its possible spread to the United States. Faith had mixed feelings about getting informed on COVID-19 so early on. She feels lucky to have been able to have discussions about the pandemic early on, but is not so happy about how nonchalant her professor was about the topic. Her professor did not present the oncoming pandemic as an actual threat and explained to his class that it was hardly worse than the Flu. Luckily, these discussions led Faith to do her own research and have better knowledge on the subject.
Faith’s college experience did not go exactly as she planned. Instead of doing her work in Milwaukee or going grocery shopping with her dorm mates, she ended her freshmen year of college online back in Saginaw. Although there were some perks for being online, like not having to get ready for an early morning class, there have been some real challenges as well. For example, her WiFi not working during online classes and difficulties in the area of her major. With her being an illustration major, she has to go through the annual process of critiquing others’ work and others doing the same for her. Through this experience, Faith has found out that these things should be done in person. Faith also realized how much she enjoys the time spent with her friends. Because of the pandemic, her friend group is spread out into different states, limiting their contact with each other to over-the-phone interactions. Faith says these methods are fine but they just don’t feel right when you spent every day with these people before.
Even with the weeks starting to mesh together and feel monotonous, Faith is still able to be thankful, mostly because she gets to spend quality time with her family again. And even though a few members of her extended family have had COVID scares, everyone so far is healthy and doing alright. From this experience, Faith has learned the importance of keeping in contact with the people you care about. Before COVID keeping contact with friends and family was not Faith’s strong suit, now that she is separated from these people she has learned to put more effort into maintaining these relationships. Even though this experience is not ideal, Faith is still thankful for everything she was able to gain from this experience and hopes that everyone can resume their “normal” lives soon.
MIPandemicStory 