Due to coronavirus, student life at Northern Essex community college has changed drastically.

Before Covid struck students were able to attend meetings, have in person classes,and enjoy the beautiful campus. Now that nobody is allowed on campus, all meetings and conversations have to be held online.

There have also been online student town halls. It seems as though everything has changed since the pandemic hit, and students are greatly impacted by these changes. The remote learning has affected staff and faculty as well.

When asked how these changes affected his life, Dermot Luddy of the Center for Liberal Arts said“It took a while for everyone to get the hang of hosting events online. Most people seem to have adopted Zoom, which is limited in its adaptability, but is still great in the way that it can facilitatelarge gatherings of people.”

“You do not know who else is at the meeting, and you cannot interact with them. Cameras are never on, and so even the hosts don’t know the level of engagement by the attendees,” said Luddy.

The effects of Covid are vast on the students and have greatly impacted their engagement both in webinars and in their classes.Before Covid, there were many activities that would be held at the NECC campus tha tworked with student schedules, but the same can’t be said for online activities.

“When we are oncampus there are always events that I would like to attend, but can’t due to scheduling

difficulties,” said Luddy.

Many students could attest to these changes affecting their daily lives and availability, and it seems like the spring will be very similar.

Spring classes are going to be completely remote as well, but might entail more structured meeting times. This will most likely be difficult due to the great diversity of students in Northern Essex, as many students’ schedules don’t line up with each other.

Luddy, who helps students with schedules, stated “I think that most students appreciate that they can have thes emeetings one-on-one where they get my undivided attention.”

This could be seen as one positiv ein the current situation, but there are still many questions about the coming semester and seemingly ever changing state of the current world.