Tales from a First Year in Quarantine
By Chloe Moore ’24
Move-in day was sunny and warm—not at all representative of general Minnesota weather trends. Settling into my dorm was a new beginning, under very complicated circumstances. There was the thrill of a new space, of living alone (my sister and I shared bunk beds for most of my life), of hanging up my art and posters and making a Dupre double into a new kind of home. The first few days of existing on campus, before classes started, felt more like summer camp than anything else, with amoebic circles of people forming on the lawns, talking a little too loudly to hear each other through masks. Once classes started, it started to settle in that this wasn’t a normal experience. As a first year, I had no previous college experience to which I could compare this newfangled kind of learning. Mostly, I was just excited to be on campus, taking absolutely no math classes, and not spending 7 hours of every day in class. That’s not to say everything was easy— Zoom does get tiring, and not being able to go anywhere makes even the silhouette of Old Main get old. Like many aspects of quarantine, first semester has been a kind of hazy balance, the Macalester campus a bubble within a country in crisis.
The semester can be defined most aptly as an ongoing “we’re doing our best.” Professors had to figure out how to teach on Zoom, students had to adjust to juggling massive public health responsibility with an intensified schedule, and first years in particular had to find a way to turn boxes on a computer screen into community. The semester became an exercise in making a 14’8” x 14’4” room into a kind of time travelling machine; I delved into the Chartist movement in my first-year course, hurtled towards decolonial futures in my women’s studies class, and wandered Baldwin’s Paris in an American studies course. The balance, then, has been between intellectual and social stimulation. I don’t think my brain has ever been happier than it was this semester, because for the first time in my academic career, my classes are being spent on critical analyses and in-depth writing assignments, rather than relitigating whether or not homophobia is bad (thanks, high school). My Dupre cubicle became so much more than four cement walls as it filled up with books and ideas. The cold weather did eventually put a damper on the social scene, but Café Mac provided respites from the monotony of an otherwise virtual day. And working in the English department offered a regular schedule and good company on Wednesday nights to combat the soupy feeling of time in isolation.
Compared to my friends at other colleges, I definitely feel like I lucked out. Phoning friends who spend upwards of six hours a day on Zoom, or peers who were taking college classes from their childhood homes, I’m mainly struck by a sense of immense gratitude that I’m able to be on campus at all. Given that it’s just first years on campus now, I’m sure Macalester will feel different when we eventually fill back up. That’s what I’m most looking forward to; safety is the top priority, of course, but it’s certainly strange to be the only fish in a very small pond. The #heymac tag on Twitter only does so much for social interaction. In that sense, however, social media has been incredibly helpful for connecting with other students. I made friends with other early decision admits before we got to campus, which made it a lot easier to interact meaningfully from a distance.
All in all, it’s been a strange semester, but not a bad one. Working in the English department has certainly been the highlight of the year thus far. Our Coffee Houses are a welcome break in the week, and one of the only Zoom scenarios that is consistently fun. Community-building events, like a live-streamed conversation with Claudia Rankine and a book talk from Kao Kalia Yang, have been some of the most interesting things I’ve gotten to listen to in a while. So even though we’re physically distant, I feel in many ways more intellectually connected to the world around me, in past and present manifestations, than ever before. Nothing is easy during a pandemic, but in between the snowstorms and stillness, I can confidently say that Macalester feels like home.