The Transition to an Online Life

By Hunter Wilson
IMC Student

As the new times start to set into the entire world, we are still left in a state of confusion and denial, unsure of how long we will have to live like this. Audrea Fitch, a Senior Ole Miss student from Orlando, Florida, has had a tough time trying to figure out what to do in her new-found free time. 

The Senior was on spring break in the Bahamas when the news was out that school was going to move into an online sector the rest of the semester. 

“At first I was excited, but then when I got back to America, the reality hit in,” she said. 

The world had flipped upside down and everything was changed. Ole Miss students came back to Oxford to get essentials and then left to go back to their hometowns, which is exactly what Fitch did. 

“I never thought that I would have my last college semester ripped away from me in the blink of an eye,” she said.  With the mandatory two week quarantine from travelling outside of the country past her, she wanted to go back to the town that she has called home for the past four years. As she got back she saw a town that was once filled with sound and lights, empty and sad. 

“The square has never been so empty and lifeless and I can’t believe so many restaurants have shut down temporarily,” she said. 

The once staples of this town for game days and Double Decker, Ajax Diner, and many other restaurants have shut down until COVID-19 passes. These businesses have been the center of this town and have held so many memories for so many Oxford locals as well as visitors for years, and they are now black and lifeless. Double Decker, the town’s yearly festival, has been moved to August right before school starts back up. Fitch never thought that her Junior year spring was her last spring semester to experience such iconic Oxford traditions. 

“Going through campus is crazy. Usually during this time of the year, students are all over campus going to class, baseball games, and spring parties, which I will never be able to attend as a student again,” she said. 

Now with the evacuation of the campus, all the classrooms are dark and Fraternity Row has been the quietest it has been in forever. Spring parties and baseball games are the most looked forward to events of the spring semester, and Fitch will have to be an alumni to ever attend those again. 

Fitch has been looking forward to her last semester of college for as long as she could remember, but she never thought it would be like this. 

“I never thought that I would sit in my house and do school work all day online and not be able to fight for a parking spot by the Ford Center ever again,” she said. 

With the semester coming to a close, there are so many things seniors, like Audrea Fitch, will never be able to experience. One of those things is the rush and excitement of graduation weekend. A weekend that they celebrate for the last four years of hard work and dedication to this university. 

“It hit me when they took away graduation… I never thought that I wouldn’t be able to walk across the Grove stage with my best friends that I have met throughout this time… I would never believe that a virus would take that away from so many of us,” she said. 

Physical graduation is up in the air right now due to the COVID-19, and there is no date set in stone as of right now. Fitch said it won’t be the same as May graduation whenever they decide to let them have it. Seniors across the world are mortified as their lasts of lasts are taken away from them and as they enter the real world a little sooner than before. The only thing to do now is live in the moment, live in the time that will go down in history, and don’t forget to wash your hands.