Peet freshmen reflect on two years during COVID

COVID-19 has affected many differently over the past two years; though the virus is common, the experiences have not been. 

Ben Backes, a freshman at Peet, has had similar experiences to my own. He said, “It hasn’t really affected me too much. The only thing that was tough was some of my sports seasons being canceled because of it.”

However, Kai Smith, another freshman, has had a very different experience. “I’d say that COVID has really changed how we view the world when it comes to germs,” he said. “Personally I’ve become a lot more conscious about making sure to wash my hands several times throughout the day and watching where I cough and sneeze and really understanding how easily something like that could spread and infect everybody around me. It’s been a really sucky experience, but hopefully we can use it as a way to prevent something like COVID from happening ever again.”

Carter Johnson, a Peet student, said over these past two years, “I think COVID was a really rough time for a lot of people, and in a lot of aspects that includes me. I guess I had it easier than a lot of people, though, since I’ve always kind of been a shut-in my entire life, so when COVID came and we had to all lock down and such, I wasn’t too phased by it at first. Issue was that without any social interaction or anything going on, I ended up falling into a situation where I would start gravitating online to meet new people instead. This led to a lot of good things, but a lot of bad things too. I met a lot of people I would have never met if COVID didn’t happen, people I really care about, but at the same time, this gravitation to the internet and media and being so lonely killed my mental health. It made me numb. I’ll never be the same after that, but, overall, I’d say I didn’t have it so bad. No one I loved died from it, and whilst a lot of rough things happened when I was on the internet, it helped me mature quicker and grow as a person, and now that it’s all mostly over and such, I can say, I’ll definitely never be the same person I was before.”

Joshua Dowd, also a freshman, said, “I would say that it really made me grow more socially. I learned a lot from only talking to people online, and the biggest thing I learned was to pursue my hobbies. Many of the people I spoke to wanted the best for me and tried to keep my online time in check. I never realized it at the time, but I learned that the amount of time I was spending online was unhealthy. They all helped me grow and learn to be much more social.”