College campuses and COVID-19

(BOSTON, Mass.) In September, colleges in the Boston area gave their students the “okay” to come to class after a summer of uncertainty. To comply with COVID-19 regulations, many of the schools have set up Hybrid Learning. This means that if you wish to attend class in person, you must have a COVID test. You also must have proof that states that you did take one. Some schools like Merrimack College are stopping students at the campus gates if they do not have proof of testing. Students say the school requires them to have an application downloaded called “Co-Verified”. This mobile application is expected to be filled out every morning by the students to confirm that they have no symptoms. “There’s always a guard at the gate and you need to show them the application to get through,” says Matthew Cavoli, a sophomore at Merrimack College. In addition to preventing spread in the classroom, schools are also trying to be on-top of outside classroom activity. During the first week of September, eleven students from Northeastern University were punished after having a group gathering in a hotel. Those students have since then been dismissed without a refund of their $36,500 tuition. “There must have been like 30 emails that said “Hey you can’t gather. You can’t have ten people in a room you just can’t do that”, So who are those students to say we are more important than the rest of the students on campus,” says Alex Tsipis, a Senior at Northeastern University. At the start of the Coronavirus Pandemic, schools across the country shut down. Now that they have opened, students fear that they could close again due to their classmates hosting large gatherings. “If the one thing that’s on your mind is I want to get with my friends and just forget about that, then I do think it’s kind of a selfish idea,” says Aaron Homem, a Sophomore at Emerson College. When asked about the possibility of the schools closing due to an outbreak, upper and underclassmen alike worried that this would have a medical effect on their families. “I don’t know if it would be unfair, this pandemic is a really bad situation. We must try and stay safe in all of this. Everyone has loved ones and people they got to worry about,” says Jake Dufresne, a Freshman at Bridgewater State University. According to students, financial worry is also a harsh reality for many families. “It is a big burden on a lot of families, not all of these families can afford to just sign off a check and say go have fun for the year,” says Sean Walsh, a sophomore at Merrimack College. While many students are being extremely safe and cautious, they worry that the fate of this semester will rest in the hands of those less responsible. “Even if there are 10 thousand kids at one school, it takes one kid to mess it up for everyone,” says Cavoli.