Call for Comments: Freshman Year in Quarantine

From Mav: Way back in April — so you know basically a million years ago in the COVID world —we did a show about what it was like to finish up your senior year of high school during a worldwide pandemic lockdown. Back then (seriously it really does seem like forever ago) we had on real life high school seniors Sophie and Tristyn to tell us all about the ways in which their lives had been suddenly broken as they were trying to officially finish up the “childhoods” and all of the rituals that we take for granted that they suddenly missed out on. At the time both girls were anxiously looking forward to hopefully being done with all of this, salvaging something of their senior years and graduation and trying to embrace a new future of college life in some semblance of normalcy.

Obviously, that didn’t quite happen. The world continues to be anything but normal. Both of the girls did graduate, but obviously that ended up looking different than anything we’d normally expect. And now here we are in the fall and college isn’t “normal” either. Tristyn’s school decided to go all virtual, so she’s basically starting off her freshman year on her parent’s couch… basically the same place she ended her senior year. Sophie decided to take a gap year, so she’s not actually away at school either. Of course, unlike the fun movie version of gap years, she’s not backpacking her way across Europe, because Europe is closed to us filthy Americans. She’s living at home still and working. I listen back to the show we did a year ago themed around preparing her for college and that’s just an entirely different world.

Anyway, we thought we’d invite both girls (now women) back for kind of a sequel show to the one from April where we discuss what it’s like to start their adult life in the middle of the same pandemic they were forced to end their childhoods in. What’s it like to start college in this weird situation? What’s it like to defer college in this weird situation? What’s it like to suddenly be an adult… but in a world where being an adult doesn’t come with basically any of the freedoms and advantages that usually come with that? Do they wish had chosen the path the other one chose? How are they keeping from going crazy? Are there any advantages to this crazy world whatsoever?

What other questions do you have for them? What other thoughts? Let us know (and as a side note, if you happen to know a college freshman who IS on campus right now, let me know. I might want to talk to them as well).

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