Angelina Nguyen walked into the Quad like any other day to sit with friends and chat between classes—though this visit was met with the shocking sight of hordes of students bustling past Allen, Coates and other Quad buildings.
The crowds of students was a stark difference in campus life for the architecture sophomore, who was accustomed to an LSU experience marked by pre-recorded lectures, Zoom calls and an almost abandoned campus.
“I’ve only ever seen the Quad with like five people maximum, so seeing this many people is very odd to me,” Nguyen said as she watched classmates pass by.
Nguyen didn’t feel like she lost out on her college experience, despite her only memories of campus being when it was emptied due to a global pandemic. She said she has gotten more involved this semester, spending more time in the architecture studio designed to allow students to work collaboratively and get to know one another.
Seventeen months after the pandemic shut down in person activities nationwide, students are finally able to begin feeling a sense of normalcy in their academic lives with the return of on-campus classes and in-person activities.
On Feb. 24, LSU informed students that they planned to operate under normal conditions for the following semester.
“Assuming that vaccinations proceed as expected, we anticipate that by fall, we will be able to operate the way we did before the onset of the pandemic,” the update read. ” In other words, we expect the vast majority of courses to be delivered face-to-face once again, and for the majority of campus operations to be back to normal. We expect that overall, fall 2021 will operate similarly to fall 2019.”
Less than a tenth of a mile away from the Quad, history and English junior Noah McKinney was happy to once again witness student clubs, Greek chapters and religious organizations line the sidewalks of Free Speech Alley, all ready to chat with any curious student who passed by.
“I think a vast majority of the iconic pieces of campus life have returned,” McKinney said. “Clubs have been starting back up again. I just saw an ad for the cloud watching club that’s been coming back, which I’ve never partaken of but it’s always interested me, so maybe I’ll go to one of their meetings now that the worst part of the quarantine has passed.”
As she passed out candy and informational flyers regarding hazing awareness in Free Speech Alley, communication disorders senior Cappi Priola said that community had been missing from the LSU experience since the pandemic arrived on campus.
“Being in school makes me feel like I’m part of campus again,” Priola said. “Being able to go to class in person, go to things with my friends is really valuable to me, especially my senior year.”
“It’s this kind of transitionary period,” fourth-year student Josh Babin said. “It’s getting back to where it was but it also feels like the culture has changed a little bit as well. You have to wear a mask, you have to ask permission to sit just one seat away, that kind of thing.”
For mechanical engineering junior Andrew Larpenter, signs of campus’ movement to a post-pandemic lifestyle were palpable.
“The testing center line was super long and backed up,” Larpenter said. “Frats [are] on the parade grounds again. Freshmen are dropping their Hydro Flasks on the sidewalk. I’d say things are pretty much back where they were.”
Underclassmen like Nguyen may not know what it looks like to operate in person, though those who witnessed LSU pre-pandemic are glad to see the university filled with life once again—whether it be on the weekdays during classes or on Saturdays, when tailgates blanket the campus before full-capacity football games in Tiger Stadium.
Kinesiology sophomore Emmalee Drickamer said that for her, tailgating makes her feel like college life is normal, despite never experiencing a pre-pandemic collegiate world for herself. Tailgating and full capacity games gives incoming freshmen and sophomores “a taste of what LSU is like without COVID,” she said.
Drickamer noted that things “will always feel off” until masks are a thing of the past.
“The facial interactions that are limited by masks make it more difficult to get to know the people sitting next to you and to see their faces and to understand how they’re feeling,” McKinney said in agreement. “I think that’s the last piece of the puzzle.”
In addition to masks and a change in how people interact, in-person classes resumed at full capacity with a major infrastructure shift: the presence of large HEPA air purifier machines.
Regardless of major, numerous students agreed that HEPA machines make classroom life harder. Drickamer said that paired with masks, HEPA machines’ constant noise make it too difficult to learn in person and understand professors.
“It’s almost easier to just be on Zoom. With everything we have to do, it’s just easier,” she said.
Less intrusive changes in the classroom haven’t been too noticeable to students like chemical engineering senior Jacob Beadle, whose lab was split into three groups instead of the typical two to minimize contact among students.
The new organization of his lab “doesn’t change much,” Beadle said.
The changes the university has made since the pandemic first broke out and the subsequent policies they’ve put in place may not have been part of the typical LSU experience, but to the class of 2024 and 2025, this is the normal they know.
“It almost feels not normal because ‘normal’ was last year,” English sophomore Adam Richards said. “It’s so not what we are used to. As opposed to getting back to normal, it’s getting away from normal because my expectations were set last year.”
