Sophomore Frances Millar was actually on campus during the Fall 2020 semester before deciding to take a gap semester in the spring. However, Bryn Mawr’s success in keeping COVID-19 cases and transmission low during the Fall 2020 semester did reassure King and her parents, giving them hope that living on campus “was going to be as safe as it possibly could be.” She continued to remain optimistic about the spring semester, finding the positive aspects of her choice to return to Bryn Mawr, stating, “even if all classes went online, I could still be on campus and would enjoy being there.” “I was worried that Spring 2021 courses that planned on being hybrid would go online again and that we would even be sent home due to rising cases,” she explains. Rising Bryn Mawr junior Annarose King outlined her initial fear of the “complications” rising COVID-19 cases on campus would present. The academic and social repercussions of the pandemic have worried students, but the crux of the pandemic-the threat the COVID-19 virus poses on people’s health-was another major factor students considered when thinking about taking time off from college. As the summer didn’t provide much hope or change in terms of the number of COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations in the US, Rule-Becker “realized that things were not going to be normal.” She didn’t like the prospect of more virtual learning and “the idea of only being able to be unmasked when you’re in your room by yourself.” Incoming Bryn Mawr junior Isabelle Rule-Becker took the whole 2020–21 school year off and echoed Khanna’s statements, explaining that she also first considered a gap year last March when all classes became virtual. “I was just thinking about being in a dorm room all alone on a computer, all the time.” Khanna states that it was “really hard to focus online and there are so many downsides to virtual learning,” and even the prospect of the isolation on a college campus during a pandemic contributed to her decision. Sophie Khanna, a Bryn Mawr junior, explains that she first considered taking time off from Bryn Mawr once the college announced that it was going to be online again in the fall. When students were sent home last March and had to finish the semester virtually, many began to consider the idea of a gap semester or year if virtual-learning were to continue into the 2020–21 academic year.
There are tons of students taking time off from school right now due to the COVID-19 pandemic, whether it’s before going to college, during college or even before graduate school.
What used to be referred to as the “five-year-plan,” a list of boxes to tick after high school or college, has turned into more of a “five- day-plan.” Thanks to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic that hit in March 2020, students all around the globe have had to readjust to academic and social changes, redefining what it means to learn and socialize.
This past year has rerouted or derailed almost everyone’s lives and plans.
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