Current student, Kali Bergeron, 20, of Salem, N.H., is spending her second semester at Northern Essex.

Bergeron is in her prerequsite year of her general health and science courses, with the goal of getting into the radiology program and eventually becoming a radiologic technologist. Bergeron explains her path to radiology technology and her experiences at NECC.

Bergeron is the youngest of three siblings. She played soccer in elementry school and high school.

“I was disapointed Northern Essex didn’t have a soccer program, because I played since I was little,” said Bergeron. She was at NECC in the past playing basketball. She is currently employed at Northeast Rehabilitation Center in Salem N.H. working in housekeeping. I worked with her there as well, which is how I met her.

A graduate from Salem High school in 2019, she left that fall with the intention of training to join the National Guard as a Criminal Justice major at the North Greenville University in South Carolina. After one semester Bergeron lost intrest in criminal justice and returned home to Salem, N.H., and her job at Northeast Rehab.

Bergeron strugled to find hours in the dishroom so she shifted her attention with Housekeeping.

“I couldn’t find enough hours in the dishroom, so I was intrestd in trying housekeeping like cleaning patients rooms,” said Bergeron.

Working as a housekeeper is what drove her to radiology.

“I enjoyed working around the patients while cleaning their rooms and helping them when they needed it,” Bergeron said.

A radiologic technologist works with a variety of  equipment responsible for diagnosing injuries and illness with such as X-rays and MRI.

This is Bergeron’s first year since enrolling at NECC in January 2020. “I chose Northern Essex because it was the only school close by home to offer a (radiologic technologist) program,” she said.

COVID-19 did not really affect her classes at NECC.

“The pandemic really hasn’t affected my learning, I wasn’t living on a campus unlike Greenville,” she said. “Online clasess are easy for me. Plus I am only taking two courses so I can still work. I’m taking a chemistry course right now. The program requiers a lot of chemistry and science.”

As we mark the one year anniversary of the lock down, and the switch from in-person attendance to online, college students are getting used to the process of everyday self management of an (overly) full online work load.

Some students I’ve talked to feel that, after a full year of online and hybridized learning, they’ve mastered keeping up with their classes after the rocky adjustment period.

For most though, the initial stress hasn’t gone anywhere.

Michael Wilkinson, a Junior at UMass Amherst studying biochemistry, said that “I think I’ve just gotten used to it at this point. Checking 50 emails a day, keeping track of what needs to be done in every class every week, trying to balance in-class time with out of class time … It’s still stressful, but I have a hold on it now. Planning breaks from the computer definitely helps.”

Wilkinson currently takes six classes, from hybrid to fully online. When the switch from in-person to online learning happened, during his sophomore year, he said that “I felt a bit lost at first, taking so many intense classes. It took me a while to fully adapt, especially to the new stress. It was relatively easy to keep up with everything before, but then it was like, wow, I have to work three times as hard to understand what I’m doing, with half the help. Now it’s second nature.”

Josh Doyle, a communications major at UMass Lowell, commented more on how he manages stress.

“Taking breaks and spending time not doing school work or looking at screens definitely helps. Going outside and designating certain ‘work times’ helps from getting burnt out too,” Doyle said. “I’ve been managing online classes for over a year and I think I’ve gotten better at managing a balance.”

Doyle and Wilkinson have different class loads, but both manage their stress in the same ways. Taking scheduled breaks from screens, trying to be outside as much as possible, and keeping in touch with friends regularly helps.

Both students are also avid hikers, and Wilkinson that “it’s really the perfect destresser. It’s ‘pandemic friendly’, and a good change of scenery from endless screen time. I think I’ve hiked just about every mountain around Amherst at this point.”

Kaitlin Morris, a UMass student who is fully online and taking classes from home, said that “it’s all about self care. Doing the things you like to do when you can, and planning out when you’ll do work in each class. It keeps me from getting stressed out about anything specific.

“Taking classes [fully] remote can be a bit tough at times, not being on campus, but having a planner for everything helps with remembering things. I try to get out of the house as much as I can, too. It can get pretty stuffy, but as long as I take time for myself it isn’t a big deal.”

Organization seems to be the key to success in online classes. Planning out when to focus on classwork and when to take breaks, constantly checking up with individual classes, and staying on top of deadlines are all important to maintaining a stress free student life.

As we draw into mud season, the dreary stretch between early March and April, the grass finally becomes visible through the melting snow, trees start to bud, and slush and mud rule the Earth, most farmers in Massachusetts have one thing on their mind; Maple syrup. Maple sugaring, also known as the process behind making the glorious golden syrup, is a time honored New England tradition dating back to the 18th century, when it first spiked in popularity here in Massachusetts, which now has over 300 maple producers in the state. Many more small town hobbyists are picking up the taps and pails too, according to the Massachusetts Maple Producers Association. You’ve probably seen the lines and sugar taps running through just about every forested property by now, as the process can start as early as mid-February, and run through late March. As maple syrups from all across the begin to fill the shelves of local grocers and sugar houses, it comes to mind if all maple syrups are made the same. The simple answer is; absolutely not.

To understand and appreciate the full process that goes into making maple syrup, a brief ecology lesson is needed. The mud season is the perfect time for collecting sap from maple trees due to the rapid change in temperature from night to day. Nightly thawing, and immediate daily warming, build up pressure in maple trees, and force sap from the top of the trees down to the roots, allowing for the sap to be collected in mass daily. The first run, or first tapping of selected trees, typically happens the first day temperatures reach above 55 degrees. The sap from the first run is always the most potent, taking only around 38 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon of syrup. Snow helps the process along as well, keeping moisture out of the sap. If that seems like a lot, it is. However, as the season draws on, and the sap loses some of its sugar contents, it can take up to 55 gallons to produce one gallon of refined maple syrup. That means that farmers from all across the state have trudged through the early morning snow, and bitter cold, for hundreds of years chasing that perfect first run. For them, its well worth it.

I was lucky enough to get a tour of a local sugar shack, a “small” mom and pop shop out in Byfield, MA. Bernie Fields, owner of the Field Family Sugar House, was kind enough to show me his operation, which he’s been running with his close family since 2007, when he split out from his extended families sugar shack out in Leverett, which has been family owned and operated since 1814. He taps 898 maples of different variety, mostly red maple, sugar maple and black maple, spanning over 10 different properties. He says that Norway maples, the most invasive, proliferate sap producing maple, “aren’t good for anything but firewood”. Most massive sugar maple farms use vacuum pumps to suck sap from trees and transport to a massive sugar shack, and use a process called reverse osmosis to clean sap, and turn it into marketable syrup as quickly as possible, but not Bernie. He does things the old fashioned way, just as his families done for generations. He still rides around collecting sap in an old fashioned buggy, with a large tank on back for storage. He does all his collecting by hand.

“You can visit any sugar shack in the state, and every one of them would have a different way of doing things. This is just the way that I’ve found works best,” Field told me as he showed me his boiling setup. He filters all his sap through handmade cloth filters; no reverse osmosis or vacuum pumps like all the large scale farms use. A massive tank, usually filled to the brim with sap, flows into the boiling chamber at very precise volumes and is held at a consistent temperature, both of which are monitored with old fashioned equipment. No dials, pressure sensors, or flashing lights; manual hydrometers, offset collectors to monitor the process, and intuition gathered over years in the business guide Field’s maple sugaring process, and it works. I was a bit skeptical how much of a difference this process would make, but after a taste test, I was made a believer in quality, naturally made maple syrup! And the best part? “Anybody can do it. Anybody.”