Interview 073 with Lauren W

Listen to Caribbean-American Lauren W. of Queens, New York—whose parents are from the island of Jamaica—share about going to school in Washington D.C. during the Covid-19 pandemic. She talks about moving back home in the spring of 2020 during her sophomore year of university. She did her junior year online from her home in New York and she returned to D.C. for her senior year in 2022. On distance-learning during the pandemic: “I think I learned more in person. I think the interesting part was like, I guess was the will to learn, because I feel like for me like I could pass my classes and do well in my classes. But, then am I retaining any of the information past the end of the class? So, I feel like that was harder in zoom-era, because it was just like, okay, I have to do this. I'm taking this class from my bed. So let me just finish this. Where, like in school…everyone around you is, is working towards the same goal as you. So, it's kind of like a—it's kind of like a community push, like ‘Oh, we're all learning,’ I guess…Yeah. I think in school it was definitely—not definitely—but it was more so, learning the goal was ‘Oh, I'm interested in this, so I want to learn more about this.’ Where in zoom-school it was more ‘I want my degree now’…” “I had a couple of friends who did, like, really hands on work, like, labs and stuff. So they got sent lab kits with, like… I know there was a dissection lab and people were sent, like, vacuum sealed animals…” On returning to in-person classes at college: “Senior year was interesting…We had a lot of like Covid outbreaks all the time…Because I think like a lot of people didn’t wear masks and then the classrooms were still very much regular classrooms and it was still elbow-to-elbow still, which was interesting…” “So Covid happened a lot. I think I caught it once. I know a couple of people that had it twice. Or even three times.” On studying abroad during the pandemic: “I was supposed to study abroad summer of 2020…or…yes… Summer of my sophomore year. Either summer of my sophomore year or my junior year and I was supposed to go to London for the summer and do, like, an internship program. Um, but then they had the restrictions where if we went we would have to be under lockdown for like a while and, yeah, I think I realized that I wasn’t gonna go after I had paid $400 to get my passport expedited…Because I think it was like a crazy number to go to London and be in isolation, and so I said that I was not gonna go, and then for some reason they said that because I said I’m not gonna go too late, I guess, I’m still gonna have to pay back the entire amount of the trip…So I’m still paying for a trip to London that I never went on.” On January 6th 2021: “GW dorms are on the same…block as The White House. If you just walk down you’re in front of The White House…I think GW sent out a message saying, like, ‘lock your doors, stay inside.’ …I remember being home…I know that people were on campus, because I remember getting the GW, like, broadcast text message telling people to like barricade themselves inside… I was in New York.”