Struggling Together - Student Quarantine Stories

Written from my own experiences at UC Irvine

Edward Jones, a graduating senior in comparative literature, wakes up with the nine other roommates he shares in the expansive three-floor honors house with in the on-campus Arroyo Vista housing community. If this were a typical day, 32 students would be trudging down to the kitchen to grab a quick breakfast before heading to their 8 a.m. classes. But today, there are no buses running, there are no cars in the normally crowded parking lots, and there are no students buzzing in and out of dorm rooms.

Jones, and students like him – unable to return home amid the current pandemic – have sheltered in place on UCI’s campus, where they wait out the quarantine in the company of their computers and smartphones. Their biggest hardship is staying positive in an uncertain world.

At the end of the winter quarter in March, UCI urged students to return to their permanent homes and take their spring courses online. Of the approximately 15,000 who lived on campus, only 4,000 or so remain, almost all of the in east campus apartment communities.

Jones, for instance, could not return to his Tennessee home, because his mother is immuno-compromised and he did not want to risk her becoming ill.

He says he’s lost structure to his days and finds keeping up with online classes difficult, especially when there are no uniform grading or assignment requirements. Not having physical support from professors and peers has also been difficult on him.

“I am taking a religious studies class on Zoroastrianism this spring,” he says. “I promised the professor Touraj Daryee in my first year at UCI that I would take this class with him, and I was looking forward the in-person interaction, discussing the materials and really learning from this man.”

Now, he believes this ability for interaction is gone, especially because of the transition of mental health and addiction services to Zoom. Jones had been struggling with alcohol addiction, and was successfully completing a program with Alcoholics Anonymous with UC Irvine’s addiction services. Now that social distancing rules have regulated meetings and services to online interactions, he has been stripped of the security that a sponsor provides in their immediate in-person response to crises associated with addiction. He sponsored several other students, who he can no longer meet with due to social distancing.

Mental health services on campus that have transitioned online try to create spaces for students through Zoom wellness webinars where students can practice self care and mediation techniques.

Ultimately, Jones says, “you are still alone when that call ends. There’s always a potential for relapse.”

But in spite of the many challenges, Jones tries to stay positive by slating time to practice banjo, which he picked up early last year, or he will take his new Harley Davidson motorcycle for a spin. Feeling the wind at his back makes him forget, even if it’s just for a moment.

Emma Gao, an international student from China, stays in Irvine because her parents were convinced it was safer for her to stay in California, especially when the virus was still raging in Wuhan, which is not far from the city where her family lives.

Now she stays with two other roommates who have also been grounded on campus due to travel restrictions that prevent them from going back to their home state or countries.

As a business economics major, many of Emma’s classes focus on writing. Deadlines for her class essays are at the end of the quarter, so she spends much of her days speaking to family over video chat or watching YouTube make-up tutorials that are normally banned in China. Since her lectures are pre-recorded, she figures she can wait to listen to them until she is ready to write the essays, closer to the end of the quarter.

When browsing social media, Gao notices some disturbing stereotypes about international students resurging, such as the stereotype that international students have not been affected by the virus because they are rich.

“I feel like I am neither Chinese nor American right now because if I go back to China they will quarantine me for weeks before I am allowed to see my family, and there is a perception in China that international students who are coming from America do not follow quarantine rules,” she says. “And in America, international students are perceived as rich when many of us are struggling right now, just the same as others.”

The toughest part of stay-at-home orders for Charlie Brody, a senior graduating in political science, are that any proper goodbyes, ceremonies or events that would provide closure for his time at UCI are suddenly gone. But he finds comfort in the knowledge that he can continue to engage in shenanigans with friends.

He binges episodes of the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars with friends over Zoom and will log on to chat about anything, or even exercise together. “There’s no substitute for in person interactions, but video calls are still an opportunity to connect with others, which comes pretty close,” he says.

I try not to dwell on it too much,” Brody says, “because life-altering moments can happen at any time, and I’ve come to learn that I eventually grow from those unexpected changes. Plus, the worldwide solidarity when it comes to this specific issue feels strangely comforting, knowing that we’re all struggling in some way because of this event.”

And then there’s me. I’m a senior literary journalism major, and I have found that where my apartment was once a source of pre-pandemic stress, the place for bumming Cheetos from the mini fridge in the corner and binging endless TV shows in the face of mounting deadlines, it’s now my greatest source of streamlined productivity. I wake and read on the bed; I might do some floor stretches, and then move to the corner desk to fill out scholarships for graduate school. Item after item becomes a line on my whiteboard checklist until my day is done, and I can settle to watch a film or two on Netflix, or maybe read some more before settling into bed.

My space has given me the opportunity to catch up on learning languages, especially my boyfriend’s native Spanish. Sometimes we Zoom chat through a messy cooking adventure or two in the kitchen downstairs, although – with his guidance – I made mouth-watering loaded tater tots topped with sweet and spicy bacon based on a recipe he learned from a restaurant job he held before he graduated from UCI. While I feel his absence, and the absence of my family, keenly, I’m finding joy in the small things.

The other day, a grocery store worker stopped me in the store to thank me for dressing up and wearing heels to the grocery store. She told me she hadn’t heard heels in ages, and listening to them clack across the floor made her day. And it’s those moments we have to cherish right now.