Students Worry They Will Not Get ‘True College Experience’ in Fall

Students around the country are beginning to express concern that they will not receive the “true college experience” when classes resume this fall. Harvard University, for example, announced this week that all courses for the upcoming academic year will be offered online in response to concerns about the Chinese virus.

According to a report by CBS News, students are gearing up for an unusual fall semester at colleges and universities around the nation.

Some institutions, including the California State University system, have already announced that they will keep their campuses closed for the fall semester. Others, such as the University of Notre Dame, are bringing students back to campus in August.

Elan Zohar, a junior at Princeton University, told CBS News that he will take this year’s courses from an apartment in South Korea, where he has been living during an internship.

“I don’t know if it would be the best idea to go back and, you know, completely expose myself in that environment, if people — if not everyone’s going to take it seriously, including college students,” Zohar said.

“To have to social distance and isolate everyone in their own room — it’s just not really appealing to me. It doesn’t really feel like the true college experience,” Zohar added.

Yasmine Bazos, who will be a freshman at Harvard University in the fall, said that she hopes her fall campus experience can feel “normal.”

“I want to be on campus so that I can start somewhat of a normal experience,” Bazos said.

Breitbart News reported this week that Harvard University will keep all of its undergraduate and graduate-level courses online for the 2020-2021 academic year. Freshman students will be permitted to live on campus during the fall semester where they will conduct their courses on computers in their residence hall.

Despite Harvard University’s announcement this week that all of their courses will remain online, the university offered no indication that it would reduce tuition costs.