This past week saw another disruption to the norm as Stevens closed campus and students were sent home. There were some eerie similarities between the water main fiasco and the first days of the COVID-19 pandemic three springs ago. As I walked to fill a jug of water for toilet flushing last Tuesday morning from a fire department truck, I thought to myself: “well, it’ll be a good story to tell.”
The class of 2023 has experienced its fair share of crazy times while at Stevens. We came to a campus still recovering from a cyberattack, where sign-in, class registration, and many other aspects of orientation were without much of the tech we were used to. In March 2020, we all rushed home, first thinking we’d come back in two weeks, and then Fall 2020, and then Spring 2021, before actually all getting back to campus at the start of junior year.
I remember too that when I moved into my apartment right before the Fall 2021 semester, Hoboken had flooded due to a tropical storm-hurricane combo. We experienced another water boil advisory at some point between then and now, and a brief stint of virtual classes in Spring 2022 due to another spike in COVID cases. In other news, our time at Stevens saw an attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, the outbreak of war in Ukraine, and the rise of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan, among many other shocking world events.
In short, my class has seen its fair share of craziness during our years of undergrad. Of course, every class has claim to its defining moments of intense, stressful, or even straight-up insane moments. But what’s important is that these experiences make our class unique, and I believe have brought us much closer together.
What’s more, we’ve met each insane moment with a newfound desire to upset the norm in a positive way. I remember the burst of energy felt upon returning to campus, and how that turned into the hosting of many new large-scale events on campus; the dedicated efforts by the SGA and other student leaders to make positive change across all areas of Stevens; and impassioned drives to focus on mental health, sustainability, DEI, and many other issues amplified by the pandemic.
We do have many battle scars, but we’ve also learned a lot from the craziness around us, and still found the motivation to be our best selves. I hope that this is the legacy of my class after we graduate from Stevens and that of the many classes who’ve dealt with COVID at some point during their academic careers.
Lastly, we’ve come back to campus with running water again and should take a moment to realize how lucky we are. My co-columnist Trevor explained this so beautifully in the first of his Senioritis pieces last semester, but to reiterate — it is a privilege for all of us to have our basic needs almost always covered, along with the chance to study, learn, and grow at a college with incredible opportunities and even more incredible people. Even in the craziest of moments, recognizing this can give us immense comfort and gratitude.
