On Dec. 10, 2020,  the new coordinator of the journalism and communciations program at Northern Essex Community College, Kim Lyng hosted a journalism and communications ‘conversation’ for all students and staff members to attend if they pleased.

Lyng began the presentation by talking about her introduction to writing as a child.

Lyng believes her love for writing stems back to her childhood, which she connected by saying she “really (loved)  to write from a really young age, and I love to write everything from short stories to poetry.”

She goes on to talk about how she believed she would go into the journalism field froma young age because of this.

Already knowing from a young age that she wanted to pursue writing, Lyng found herselfat a liberal arts college. Once she had graduated from her liberal arts college, she “worked at a newsroom [for] a newspaper where everybody in the newsroom… had been in liberal arts.”

Eventually, she would end up working for the Cambridge Chronicle, which is a section of the Somerville Journal. From here on, she found herself working for newspapers and other journalism and communication programs. Lyng went on to have varied experiences in newsrooms, including working in TV news.

One of the journalism stories she shared, revolves around a nurse who broke her leg walking to her car, and the CEO  of the hospital was very rude. When she had tried to ask about the situation, none of the workers wanted to go on record, so she instead “started getting [a lot of] anonymous sources,” since nobody wanted to openly speak poorly about the CEO of the hospital. As a journalist, Lyng still had to finish the story, but had to piece together all of the anonymous tips

Reluctan on the record sources is not uncommon in journalism, as journalists are meant to always tell the truth, which may not always align with what certain people want to hear.

Lyng went on to tell more about her experience in journalism and communications, and also answered some student questions, which delved deeper into her career and life as ajournalist. Some of these questions revolved around other careers in journalism, such as sport journalism. When talking about sports journalism Lyng said “there’s lots of different opportunities in local sports teams to kind of start there and then say, Okay. From there, I get together like a reel of me, you know, doing announcements you know.” This can lead to “to getting into  a different job somewhere, you know, ESPN.”

She answered a few more questions like this, in order to make sure the students attending the meeting got as much information about the journalism fieldas possible

.Lyng decided to end the conversation by reminding everyone on the call that now is the best time to start writing. There is not a lot to go outside and do, so with time all this homea nyone interested in going into the journalism field should start working on developing stories and testing out different types of journalism. The conversation lasted around 83 minutes, and found many people within the call to be active. The meeting was held as a conversation rather than a presentation, which is why personal journalism questions were encouraged, asked, and answered. Lastly, Kim encourages anyone with questions about journalism to reach out to her via email at klyng@necc.mass.edu.

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.

This past fall semester was one like none other. With Covid still on a rampage, manypeople have questions about what the spring semester of 2021 is going to look like at Northern Essex Community College.

It has previously been stated that classes are still going be 100% remote, but they’regoing to encourage professors to schedule mandatory zoom meetings with their students in orderto add structure to their classes.

The main issue with having mandatory class meeting times is that a lot of students are choosing to work because of the pandemic, or have different work schedules than they normally would. Also, students would normally choose their classes based on what times are available to them, but that was not how the spring of 2021 classes were chosen.

This means that most students are going to have different schedules than each other, and not all of them are going to be able to attend these meetings. Also, professors could all end up holding meetings at the same time for the same students, unlike high school where everything is blocked out.

Lastly, many students that are going to be getting their degree in the spring are wondering whether or not there will be a graduation ceremony.

Some staff members have said that they really enjoy the ceremony and I hope that there will be one in 2021, but again, it all depends on the advances with COVID-19. As of now, graduation in spring of 2021 is supposed to be on May 15. At this time there is no concrete knowledge of whether or not the 59th annual commencement of NECC Will happen, but the students and staff all hope for it to.

Covid-19 has undoubtedly changed every aspect of modern life, and education is no exception.

Due to the current global pandemic, schools and administrators have been forced to make tough decisions regarding the reopening of schools this fall.

All Massachusetts schools were shut down last March, initially only for two weeks but eventually through the end of the year.

When it came to different universities and high schools, there was no universal reopening decision. Many Massachusetts universities opened up to some extent, but some have remained completely online, such as Northern Essex Community College.

According to NECC student, Xander J-Fowler, “It doesn’t really feel like… college,” because he is unable to study oncampus.

Most first year college students look forward to the physical classes and new environment, but Fowler said he feels like “it’s just been the same as high school.”

By not being able to have on campus classes, though for students’ own safety, it is hard to feel as though these recent graduates are truly moved onto the next aspect of their lives.

Merrimack College freshman and former Northern Essex student, Kylie Stuart, said “online classes have mostly affected [her] academic plan rather than [her] normal everyday life.”

Stuart was used to attending college full time, in person, when Covid-19 initially hit the United States.

Other schools have moved forward differently than NECC, but with very different circumstances, and some students at other universities weighed in on what their lives currentlylook like as well.

Ellen Nickodemus, a freshman at the University of Miami, when asked about safety precautions stated “Some teachers don’t wear masks in class,” regardless of the risks.

Alongside the leniency inside of the university, Florida has much less regard for the seriousnessof this illness, she said.  Nickodemus stated that “there’s a lot of tolerance in Florida for people disobeying the laws,” and that people constantly walk around high traffic areas, maskless.

Massachusetts schools, including Northern Essex Community College, seem to be the strictest when it comes to newly implemented rules surrounding the global pandemic.

Looking forward, hopefully schools will be able to open back up in a safe enough manner for the American people, but until then it seems as though many Massachusetts schools will remain online.