To write stories about Campus Life at Northern Essex is like writing about what’s going on in your neighbors’ houses from the perspective of the street.
You’ve got to peek into windows and behind closed doors where quiet conversations connect through cups on invisible strings.
There’s an elephant on campus with an Achilles Heel, crouching on the school’s left shoulder, whispering through empty hallways, student lounges and faculty boardrooms, bouncing off the concrete crevices of unoccupied enclaves of the campus’s perimeter saying, “Dooo weee actuallyyy have a Campus Lifeeeee?”
“When I came here, I was like, ‘Theres not a lot happening,” said Rhea Clarke a 21-year-old Electrical Engineering major at Northern Essex Community College. Rhea, who came to NECC from Worcester Polytechnique Institute the year before, emphasized the contrast in social bustle between the two campuses.
Although the connections you can find at a four-year school with dorms simply doesn’t compare with the social landscape of NECC Rhea claims it’s not completely barren. Rhea explained she’s found friendships in unlikely places, one of them being the tutoring center.
“I didn’t know it even existed!” she said of the tutoring center. “It’s not really a social location, but I’ve hung out there some. I met some people and that’s been cool, which I was really surprised by.”
Jordan Marcelin a 19-year-old Business major at NECC echoed much of what Clarke had to say about the change in pace he experienced coming to NECC from a larger, more active school — in his case UMass Boston.
“It’s kind of weird over here, not in a bad way but I’m just used to UMass Boston being so much bigger. Over here it just feels distant.”
Location is one thing, but I wanted to know more about how Jordan felt about socializing on campus and in turn how it relates to his own social life.
Although I often see Jordan hanging out in the hallways of Building C, often chatting with other students, when I asked him about his friends he said “I’m kind of the person who doesn’t talk much, I just do school and head home.”
A common thread between Rhea and Jordan’s thoughts about social life both on and off campus had to do with the ripple many people their age still feel about the COVID-19 Pandemic along with the level of exposure to social media and digital entertainment that accompanied it.
“To me ever since COVID [it] was kind of hard to make friends. There’s still a little mix of that ‘pandemic syndrome’ in there. Some people are still kind of quiet cuz they’re used to having their mask on and being behind a screen. When you’re outdoors you’re still a little nervous,” said Jordan. “It still lingers around.”
He continued, expressing unease with how often his time was consumed by being on his phone.
“I think about how life used to be ‘back then’[when people were on their phones less]. I remember I saw a couple videos of a high school class from 2010 or 2015, everybody was fun, having fun, fun without phones. It was different. Now everybody’s on their phone, you walk everywhere people are just looking down at their phone. You kind of feel like you’re trapped in a system.”
People who have lived half their lives before the pandemic occurred may not even consider the social/emotional impact waged on late members of Gen Z and incoming Gen Alpha. They are forming their connections, building their hopes and dreams in a much lonelier world.
I asked Rhea if she thought things felt lonelier after the pandemic, to which she replied, “Oh yeah.”
“I don’t do well online,” she continued. Not just doing school online but maintaining friendships online. “When I see people and meet people in person it’s a lot easier to connect.”
Rhea touches on a prominent and paradoxical effect that social media can have. Although it was supposedly created with the intention of connecting more people than ever before, in many ways has done the opposite.
A hopeful note arose when Rhea looked up at someone passing by in the hall.
“Hey,” she said to the student in passing.
“Friend?” I asked.
“Friend.”
