Now that the first two weeks of school are officially over and things have finally gotten settled I’d like to reflect on my own experience as a student studying from home and having to remember the time difference. 

All of my professors and the institution of Mount Allison as a whole has been so incredible with how they’re dealing with students studying abroad, and I am eternally grateful for how accommodating the entire staff has been during this time. Living in the United States during COVID-19 already comes with boat loads of stress- especially living in a big college state- and I will never take how gracious Mount A has been with trying to make this process as easy and stress-free as possible for granted. 

It is still quite hard remembering to keep on top of all of my assignments, both since I am only technically in class for a few hours a day and because my time difference is so minute I sometimes forget about it, but overall it has been more manageable than I was expecting. My professors have been so understanding and I truly cannot express how much it means to me that everyone is putting their all into making this a wonderful experience for me. 

The FOMO I’ve had hasn’t been as bad as I was expecting since Mount Allison is taking the coronavirus very seriously and making sure everyone is practicing safe socialization while on campus, which is good for me since I can trust that my university genuinely cares about its students general well being as well as me not missing out on too many Instagrammable moments, but I do wish I were at Sackville right now. Having home cooked meals, sleeping in my own bed, and having my dog with me have all been so amazing but with how well Mount Allison has handled everything I kind of wish I went. 

I have a lot of anxious tendencies in my life, and with Covid being as horrible as it is here (we’re almost at 200,000 cases total) I was extremely nervous to get on a plane and fly off to college when I didn’t even feel safe enough to go to my local grocery store. Seeing how horribly the colleges around me handled everything, but especially the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, made me extremely happy with my decision to stay home, but then I saw how Mount A was handling everything and it almost immediately changed my mind. I’m still not sure if I’ll be on campus next semester as I’m mostly nervous that I would bring corona to campus, but I can say I genuinely believe that Mount Allison handled everything to the best of their abilities and I am incredibly proud to say that I would’ve felt completely safe on campus if I had chosen to go. 

Now back to the school work. My workload has been quite manageable other than reading, but that’s my own fault for procrastinating. The time difference truly kills me with morning lectures since I’ll stay up super late at night reading and writing essays, only to have to wake up a couple hours later to take notes, but that’s why God invented caffeine. Genuinely though, all of my professors have been so reasonable with the workload and they’re so understanding; I always feel like they’re wanting me to do the best that I possibly can, even when I’m telling them that I’m feeling overworked. Also, watching online lectures is kind of the serve of the century since I can go to class while still in my pajamas and having uncombed hair. My eyelashes are also thanking me for not wearing mascara anymore.  

My college experience so far has kind of felt like some sort of a trial-run, but I think that doing online work from home is going to help me ease into the collegiate experience since I have the comfort of home accompanied with the newness of actual work. I really do love my experience learning from a distance so far, and I probably wouldn’t have wanted to change anything I’ve chosen to do so far, but I am still excited to finally be on campus, regardless of when that may be.