Thousands of miles away from her home in Bangalore, India, Shivani Reddy works and sleeps in her bedroom, waiting for the coronavirus pandemic to subside and allow for a return to normalcy.

Reddy, a sophomore studying newspaper and online journalism at Syracuse University, initially hoped to stay with her uncle for a week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin when she left campus on March 14. Her plans changed four days later when India announced it would shut its borders.

Now stranded in a small apartment with her relatives in the United States, a new reality has begun to settle in for Reddy: She will not see her family for several more weeks, if not months.

“Already when I’m in college, I don’t see (my family) for such a long period of time,” Reddy said. “I’m missing out on a lot of milestones. But now that I know for sure that I probably won’t be going back this month, I feel like I’m going to miss out on that much more.” 

The novel coronavirus causes COVID-19, a respiratory disease that has now infected at least 1.4 million people and killed at least 82,100 worldwide. 

Nearly 70 countries have established travel restrictions in an effort to curb the virus’ rising infection rates. Universities and workplaces halted normal functions in early March to try to keep up with social distancing guidelines as the number of cases grew in the U.S. At least 42 states, including Wisconsin, have asked people to stay indoors or shelter in place since March 19. 

SU announced it would transition to online classes for the rest of the semester on March 16, the first day of spring break. Since the university suspended on-campus classes, Reddy has spent the last three weeks transitioning to a new lifestyle of social distancing. 

The room feels stifling, but Reddy tries to ignore the feeling as she goes about her day taking online courses, she said. Out of precaution for her relatives, she has only left the apartment twice since her arrival to Milwaukee. 

Other SU students across the country are also facing varying restrictions on their mobility. Freshman Katie Itoh said she tries to go on walks as often as she can around her neighborhood in Kailua, Hawaii. Being outdoors for even just a few minutes a day helps Itoh calm her fears about the disease’s spread and thoughts of missing her friends, she said.

“It’s just been kind of sad not being able to see them every day like I used to,” said Itoh, an international relations and broadcast and digital journalism major.

Developing a basic schedule for each day has also helped, said Sam Cote, a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. Since his siblings no longer live with his parents in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, Cote uses their rooms to work and stay organized in a space separate from his bedroom. 

“I feel like it’s a lot less structured just not being at school,” Cote said. “Anything I can do for myself that shows the difference between relaxation and work has been really beneficial to me.” 

The social learning environment at college undeniably shifted when classes resumed online, said David Barbier Jr., an international relations major now living with his family in Miami, Florida. 

The friendships he formed were a main part of his experience as a first-year student at SU, which made saying goodbye even harder, Barbier Jr. said. He struggles to adjust to being the only person his age at home while also navigating new work-life routines that change by the day.

“The whole social aspect of college has been stripped for me,” Barbier Jr. said. “I feel like I have to put more effort now because I’m not on this strict schedule anymore, and I have to actually force myself into a routine as if I was back at Syracuse.” 

Social distancing drastically changed the way families and friends even say hello in Miami, where Hispanic culture of greeting others with a kiss has become limited to fist bumps or nods with his family members, Barbier Jr. said. 

“I might be asymptomatic and might be carrying it (COVID-19) and not even know,” he said. “So, the ways in which we have to demonstrate our love for one another have shifted, and it’s clearly visible.”

Candice Bina, a sophomore television, radio and film major, said leaving campus disrupted more than coursework for her. 

With the year’s remaining rugby tournaments canceled and her sorority initiation postponed, Bina said the unfinished semester left her feeling unresolved and caught between identities. She had looked forward to bonding with the people in her sorority and celebrating her birthday with them, she said.  

“It’s kind of weird that (the sorority initiation class) will still be at that stage when we get back,” Bina said. “(Our return) is something to look forward to, but it’s also a bummer.” 

Some SU students have turned to social media platforms to stay connected with friends from the university and their communities at home. 

Now that she has more time on her hands, Reddy calls her family and friends scattered across the world nearly every day. Having multiple platforms like FaceTime, WhatsApp, WeChat and Snapchat available to her helps facilitate communication when she’s talking to friends in countries with different app restrictions, Reddy said.

“We try to make time for each other as often as possible because we’re all lonely,” she said. “With people that I don’t talk to but I wish I talked to more often, this is something that’s uniting us, because all of us are experiencing this one thing.”

Ebba Eriksson, a senior studying advertising, also said having video calls readily accessible has made staying in touch much easier for her, having just returned home to Sweden. Eriksson and her friends check in and ask about one other’s families much more often now that they’ve been separated, she said.

Cote and Barbier Jr. both said they have been using their spare time to create art reflecting on their experiences of social distancing so far.

Reaching out to friends via text at the beginning of spring break, Cote compiled two videos of people “social dis-dancing” together from their rooms across the world. Making the video was part of a personal goal to normalize self-quarantine for people his age, he said. 

Cote later posted the videos to his Instagram and Youtube accounts, where they collectively gained over 6,000 views since. 

As the situation develops, Barbier Jr. has dedicated more time to uploading content on Tik Tok, where he has produced about 20 coronavirus-related short videos since early March. 

Using humor to connect with friends while quarantining has allowed him to enjoy a new, different form of content creation that he feels he wasn’t able to do on other platforms yet, Barbier Jr. said. The current world situation has also inspired him and other creators in the videos they make, he said.

Cote and Barbier Jr. remain enthusiastic about continuing to make and share art online while social distancing allows them more time to hone their skills, they said. With more people engaging with art right now, Cote said he has enjoyed watching online communities become more accessible to different users.

“It seems like people are loosening up a bit on social media,” Cote said. “We’re all getting more comfortable on there, and it doesn’t seem as much of this processed world as it did before. It seems a lot more real.” 

Beyond online dialogue, students still expressed hope for the global COVID-19 situation to improve overall. 

Eriksson doesn’t know when she will be able to see her friends in the U.S., but she’s looking forward to seeing them again, she said. Reddy looks forward to reuniting with her parents and younger sister in India, she said. 

“I just want to make sure that once this is over, I learned something from it, and I’m more appreciative of the life that I live,” Barbier Jr. said.

Published on April 8, 2020 at 1:33 am

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