I finished my degree in the pandemic. To say it was anticlimactic is an understatement

This is a First Person column by Laura Flight, a recent graduate of Memorial University. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

In 2017, I began my studies at Grenfell Campus, Memorial University, in Corner Brook on the west coast of Newfoundland.

At the time, it felt like my future was bursting with potential and opportunity. Those years were also laden with the typical existential young adult worries of not knowing who I wanted to be after my studies.

Little did I know how intensely fear and uncertainty would rule the last year and a half of my studies — all thanks to pandemic.

At the start of the pandemic in March 2020, many campuses — along with most other academic institutions and places of business — closed for public use indefinitely. For the rest of that winter semester, many classes were conducted online for the first time, and my academic career as I knew it was over. 

While the world shut down, the anxiety of the pandemic took over the sense of security I found in everyday life. Completing a degree online from my basement was less than ideal.

Isolated from my friends, classmates and professors, I reluctantly finished the last month of that semester on a laptop screen. The connections I had cultivated over the last few years seemed pointless; the hope I had for my future was quickly dwindling, and concerns for my safety and sanity were skyrocketing.

Separation between my home life and my student life had been essential, but now my home life and student life became one. My motivation was at an all-time low. Productivity plummeted, and with it, my desire to discern the value of an English degree in a social climate where employment was appraised according to how "essential" it was. 

Since then, universities have opened, closed and reopened again. I have faced reintegration into new programs and in-person classes once again — this time in a mask-ridden, sickness-fearing world and weariness of "the new normal."

As the pandemic continued, online university did not get easier, but I adjusted to the new sense of normalcy through my screen and established as much of a routine as I could: wake up, shower, class, eat, repeat.

Late nights, anxious days

On most days, getting dressed consisted of changing from pyjamas to lounge wear — or nighttime pyjamas to daytime pyjamas, if you will — and the Zoom classroom dress code included a hoodie and a lap blanket.

I stayed up later than before because I could sleep in longer, not having to get up and be ready at 6:45 a.m. to leave my house for a day on campus.

On mornings with an 8:30 a.m. class, if I did not feel like getting up early enough to be showered and camera-ready from the waist up, that meant leaving my camera off and chat function enabled.

My mental health suffered. The anxiety that I thought was only from the first few weeks of not knowing what was going on continued from a lack of social interaction and heightened stress about online school.

Some days were worse than others. Consequently, I was unable to focus on my studies like usual and some of my grades were less than satisfactory.

I submitted my final paper, closed the countless Google tabs that were opened on my laptop, and it was over.

Some people said that I should not feel stressed, because I am not an essential worker on the front lines of fighting this virus every day. That negated what I felt without them really knowing how I was struggling.

The reality is that I was a student who could not continue to do the things I needed to feel grounded academically, socially, and, most importantly, mentally.

I completed my degree in August, closing the undergraduate chapter of my life.

To say it was anticlimactic is an understatement. I submitted my final paper, closed the countless Google tabs that were opened on my laptop, and it was over; four years of hard work and dedication concluded with a few keyboard clicks.

A part of me thought there would have been a little more pomp to the circumstances. There was a small ceremony in St. John's for students graduating in the summer, but living and working in Corner Brook prevented me from attending.

Now, as I take the rest of the academic year away from studying, I find myself in a space between doing and waiting.

I continue with a similar routine as I did in online classes but this time with less structure and more apprehension as I apply for graduate studies outside Newfoundland and Labrador.

The on-again, off-again relationship between universities and online classes, along with continuous alterations to the level of COVID risk and the discovery of new COVID-19 variants, still keep me angst-ridden. 

If only I could pretend as though everything is normal, like it's 2017.

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