The Coronavirus epidemic has changed the lives of people all around the world from doctors and businessmen to housewives and construction workers. However, there is a group that is often overlooked but greatly affected by the epidemic, the American college student. The college experience is marked as a time of growth; a time of morphing from a teenager to a fully work-ready American adult. It is a time marked by becoming who we are from the things that we like, subjects that interest us, the things we find ourselves passionate about, even the way that we see the world changes. We slowly change from children to adults emerging from the cocoon of academia and fly into the world of adulthood empowered by the lessons and growth that we experienced as young men and women into the fair winds of life and change. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed us; for me, a Sophomore, it feels as if we are reverting to a much more difficult version of high school.
Life feels like it has entered some sort of odd X-Flies world with an empty campus, empty gyms, libraries, and even more empty sports stadiums. The world stopped when the pandemic started…and it has not awoken since. With the start of the pandemic life changed. No more fun social activities, no more late-night study sessions at the library, no more in-person classes. The feelings of isolation have now set in more than ever into the hearts and minds of many a University student across our great nation. A feeling of abandonment from teachers and isolation from friends abound across the student body. Now, with the cancellation of attending such a basic college staple as a sporting event the morale goes lower.
The first picture in this project explores this staple of the American collegiate experience, the football game. Many people overlook the simple importance of this American sport; the income it generates for the University and the seemingly endless academic programs and studies through the sale of tickets and University-sponsored merchandise; the stress-relief that players get by achieving a tangible physical goal instead of the perhaps sometimes-blurry goal of achieving a diploma someday; the endorphins fans receive from cheering for their favorite team, or player; even a simple memory of sitting with a friend. For many of us the first image above conjures memories of the smell of freshly cut grass, sitting with friends, dancing in the stands, leaving all of your problems behind and uniting as a student body to try and achieve a short-term victory.
The second image is a picture of Mackay Stadium taken at the exact time that a game would have been played this year if things had been different and the Coronavirus Epidemic was not a worry. When I took this image, I took it to represent the feelings that I feel many students and perhaps some of the faculty have experienced this semester; feelings of uncertainty, fear of change, loneliness, and, above all, feelings of doubt. I find this image especially moving as it is devoid of light, both of stadium lights and the intangible feeling of the brightness and energy that students and fans bring to the University of Â鶹ӳ»’s Mackay Stadium on game day. Instead, the dark image is almost an exemplification of the crushing feelings of loneliness, dread, and uncertainty that permeate the night air within the stadium instead of a roaring crowd and the excitement of game day. I find that this image is a perfect illustration of these aforementioned negative feelings that have permeated the student body since the beginning of this semester feelings that can’t quite be captured in words, but perhaps can be captured in an image of tangible change that has settled across an empty campus.
