UM Freshman Reflects on Her Year

By Sara Brooks Adams

Journalism Student

The freshman year of college can be monumental in a person’s life. It may be your first time away from your family, you may be living entirely on your own and just starting to figure out some things for yourself. You may very well meet friends that will last a lifetime.

Of course, for the class of 2024, the freshman year did not quite go as planned due to the pandemic.

UM freshman Jayln Kelly said, “it definitely was not what we had all expected, especially living in a dorm with so many restrictions — it made it very difficult to mix and mingle and make new friends.”

Kelly said that she is thankful for all that the university did to make it as normal as possible.

Ellen Brewer teaches a course designed to engage freshmen on campus. She adjusted her teaching to improve the student experience.

“I made it a point when we were able to meet in class to meet as much as possible as well as constantly making the students do as much socially distanced interactive work as possible, so they could have the opportunity to meet and mingle with other students,” Brewer said.

Brewer also said that she reached out regularly to students and alerted them to activities going on around campus.