It’s crazy to think we are already more than halfway through this semester. It has definitely been a strange one; each one of us has had to adapt in one way or another, yet with fall coming to an end, planning for the upcoming semester is already underway.
In the past week, students began receiving emails about scheduling priority for next spring. This got me wondering what next semester is even going to look like. 
Which classes are going to be held online? All of them? Will regular in-person activities like club meetings and campus events start to resume? Will school life finally feel normal again? These are important questions the University needs to answer, and soon. 
Earlier this year, scheduling for the fall semester, students were more willing to adapt to the reality of online classes, because there were a lot of things we didn’t know yet about the coronavirus and the number of cases in Louisiana was still fairly high at the time. 
Now, however, many students are over attending “Zoom University” and eager to return to how life was pre-pandemic.
Okay, maybe going back to exactly how things were before the pandemic is unrealistic…but that’s not to say we can’t still make a few changes to give students a taste of their old lives back.
If we keep the masks and distancing, in-person classes should be doable — if not on a full-time schedule, then hybrid. One of my classes has under 20 students and we still meet via Zoom. Such a small class should be meeting in a classroom by now; there is no reason for this not to be the case. 
Zoom can still be available as an option for those who do not feel safe, but it shouldn’t be something that affects all students. The cure cannot be worse than the virus itself — and we need normalcy. If the University intends to take the same route in spring that it took in its “Roadmap to Fall,” students and their families deserve to know now. 
Students living on campus have the opportunity to renew their leases come January, but many are questioning whether that will be necessary if most of their classes are going to be virtual again anyway.
Many students used this semester as a trial-run for the distance learning format. If they aren’t happy with all the restrictions, some may decide to sit out a semester until campus life returns to normal — but they need to be informed enough to make that decision.
Before scheduling begins, leases are due and tuition requested, the University owes it to the LSU community to tell us what exactly we’re signing up for: another gloomy, Zoom-y semester, or an actual administrative effort to bring back the college experience. 
Elizabeth Crochet is a 19-year-old political communication sophomore from New Orleans.