The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
statement
Wednesday, September 16, 2020 — 16 

The (really far) 
off-campus experience

BY WILLA HART, STATEMENT COLUMNIST

L

ast March, when the University 

announced that classes would be 

moved online, I was in a philoso-

phy seminar, cramming with my classmates 

for the exam we had in five minutes. It was 

one of those classmates who read out the 

University’s official statement, the rest of us 

sitting in hushed silence, our notebooks ly-

ing open and forgotten in front of us. “Well,” 

another classmate said, “I guess we all get to 

go home now.”

“Not until you take your test,” my profes-

sor said and dropped a thick stack of exams 

on his desk.
W

hen I think back now about 

my decision to return home 

last March, I don’t remem-

ber many specifics — other than how quickly 

I made the decision to leave Ann Arbor. As 

soon as I stepped outside my philosophy 

classroom, my midterm finished, I was pull-

ing my phone out of my pocket and texting 

my dad: “Classes moved online. When can 

you come get me?”

The speed of my decision was made par-

tially possible by my family’s proximity to 

Ann Arbor — my dad lives in Hamburg, less 

than half an hour away — but also by the fact 

that my “decision” barely felt like a decision 

at all. Everyone seemed to assume a shift 

to online learning would mean a shift off-

campus. Around me, friends and classmates 

were making plans to return home and ride 

out the pandemic with family. It seemed like 

the smartest move, especially given that, at 

the time, we didn’t have specifics about how 

fatal or contagious the virus was. If I had 

any lingering resentment over having to take 

classes from my dad’s guest bedroom, it was 

softened by the knowledge that everyone 

else at Michigan was in the exact same boat 

as me.

When I decided not to return to campus 

this fall due to safety concerns, I expected 

my experience to be much the same. Yes, I 

would miss game days and Espresso Royale, 

doing homework in the Arb and browsing 

Literati, but everyone on campus would be 

missing those things with me. We were still, 

I thought, all in this together.

I was surprised by how wrong I was. In 

August, before the semester had even start-

ed, I began to feel isolated from the campus 

community. Though it didn’t bother me to 

have fully-remote classes, it was hard to see 

friends in Ann Arbor posting photos of each 

other posing and laughing. I FaceTimed in; it 

wasn’t the same. 

Public Health senior Scott Orlov ex-

pressed a similar sentiment in a phone in-

terview with The Daily. Though he acknowl-

edged that staying home had its benefits, he 

said, “One of my clubs is having potentially 

one or two in-person events, and obviously I 

can’t be there, which is really disappointing.” 

He added, “I think it’s different (than last 

semester) because a lot of people weren’t, 

like, socializing on campus like they are now. 

A lot of people were in the same situation I 

was, which was they just went home.”

Students who chose not to return to Ann 

Arbor this semester often had multiple rea-

sons for doing so, and many were motivated 

by factors unrelated to safety. Some students 

I spoke with chose to remain home for finan-

cial reasons, reducing housing costs by stay-

ing for free with family or in areas with rents 

lower than Ann Arbor’s. Others were mo-

tivated by job availability or a desire to live 

in a less cramped space than your standard 

student apartment. But, regardless, the rea-

son most often cited was health and safety 

concerns.

In a phone interview, LSA junior Piya 

Garg commented on her decision not to re-

turn to campus, noting her skepticism of the 

University’s reopening plan and student be-

havior.

“I feel like there’s a lot of people who are 

very responsible, but there’s a pretty sig-

nificant chunk of people (who are) decently 

irresponsible and not really following the 

rules,” Garg said. “And they’re not really be-

ing enforced, so I feel like it’s definitely just 

best to stay safe in this situation.”

My decision not to return to campus was 

similarly rooted in safety concerns. I had 

a lease lined up in Escher House, a co-op 

within the Inter-Cooperative Council sys-

tem. Though I had a private room, I knew 

I would also have at least a dozen house-

mates with whom I would share living and 

dining spaces. Having seen several reports 

in early August about COVID-19 clusters at 

other major universities, I decided returning 

wasn’t worth the risk.

It wasn’t an easy decision for me, as I imag-

ine it wasn’t for others. I had to say goodbye 

to my vision of what my senior year would 

look like; now, instead of (legally!) drinking 

gross beer at frat parties, I’m sipping ginger 

ale on my mom’s couch. I believe I made the 

right decision, for the right reasons, and I 

don’t regret it. But recently, I’ve found my-

self harboring an emotion different from re-

gret: I’ve become resentful of students who 

returned to campus. 

It’s like travel shaming, a new COVID-

phenomenon wherein people taking vaca-

tions — and sharing about them on social 

media — are often deluged with criticism 

about their decision to travel. Usually, as the 

above article points out, it’s those who have 

canceled their own trips who are quickest to 

judge others. I made a sacrifice to help stop 

the spread of COVID-19, the thought process 

goes: Why couldn’t others do the same?

I recognize that my feelings aren’t com-

pletely logical and that most students who’ve 

returned to Ann Arbor have done nothing to 

earn my resentment. If everyone appropri-

ately obeyed social distancing protocols, as 

many students have, the process of returning 

to campus could be safe for students, staff 

and community members. 

But it’s difficult to remember that when 

I’m sitting in bed with my dog, watching 

Snapchat videos of my friends wandering 

down State Street to get burritos and wish-

ing I could be there, too. Harder still when a 

mob of white-shirted girls appears behind 

my friends’ shoulders, their lipsticked smiles 

clear and unmasked even in the dim eve-

ning light, because, of course, many students 

aren’t obeying social distancing protocols at 

all.T

he year 2020, so far, has been 

a year of extremes. For many 

people, the world feels like it’s 

at the worst it’s ever been. It should be no 

wonder, then, that the University of Michi-

gan campus community also feels more 

disconnected than ever. The on-campus/

off-campus divide is only one fracture line 

in the smashed mirror of our community. 

Everywhere I turn, there seems to be an-

other difference of opinion: divisions be-

tween roommates about adherence to social 

distancing protocol, arguments about the 

potential for a return to fall sports, debates 

about the GEO, ResStaff strike for change 

and campus COVID-19 policy.

That’s not to say there aren’t normally 

divisions among the campus community. 

University students are not a monolith, and, 

diverse as we are, we should be used to dis-

agreeing in social, political and even ethical 

opinions. But for the first time ever, I’m un-

sure where the thread is that ties us all to-

gether. This time last year, maybe we would 

have slung our arms around our drunk 

friends and hobbled down to Michigan Sta-

dium for a collective karaoke session, which 

would have healed all wounds, if only for a 

verse or two. Of course, this year, that’s not 

an option. So, what do we do instead? Set up 

a Zoom call? Make another GroupMe?

Knowing this is the Michigan I’ll be grad-

uating from is hard. I’ve spent so long here, 

and yet I know this endless year will be what 

I remember most. Part of me wishes I could 

go back to Ann Arbor for the afternoon, just 

to see it. I haven’t returned since March, and 

when I think of campus, some part of me 

imagines it just as it was before I left, filled 

with students and businesses and the detri-

tus of everyday life. If only I could go back, 

I think, maybe everything would be normal 

again.

But that campus doesn’t exist anymore. 

Now, it’s scattered and distant, a ghost of its 

former self. I hope one day it’ll return to nor-

mal: It would be nice, in a few years, to be 

able to return and see everything put back in 

its proper place. Still, it’s hard to imagine the 

path that would get us there. Could every-

thing really return to the way it was before? 

And even if it did, what help is that for those 

of us now, sitting lost and disconnected on 

the fringes?

ILLUSTRATION BY MAGGIE WIEBE

