W

hen 
I 
returned 

from break, after 
three 
weeks 
of 

not seeing the people I had 
spent every second with for 
five months, you can imagine 
there was a lot to catch up 
on. Besides updates about life 
back home and the exchange 
of new schedules, there was 
one change that stood out 
amongst the other news: many 
of them had decided to change 
their major. I found it very 
strange to see so many of my 
friends returning to campus 
with a newfound change in 
the direction that they wanted 
to take their lives in. It made 
me start to think about all the 
people I knew and wonder: 
how 
many 
of 
them 
had 

changed their career paths in 
the last few months? Let’s just 
say, those who had stuck with 
their intended major were in 
the minority. 

It has always troubled me 

how today’s society expects us 
to know what we want to do for 
the rest of our lives by such a 
young age. For instance, there 
is no doubt that when applying 
to 
colleges, 
someone 
who 

can show a constant passion 
that they followed through 
for four years becomes a very 

strong 
candidate. 
Speaking 

from 
personal 
experience, 

my desire to find a consistent 
interest led me to choose 
environmental 
science 
as 

my 
life’s 
passion. 
Under 

pressure from my parents, my 
rationale at the time was that 
I liked nature and so by the 
transitive property, I should 
like environmental science. 
And that was that. For the next 
four years, that one choice 
shaped every decision I would 
later make. 

In 
my 
sophomore 
year 

of high school, instead of 
applying to the Manhattan 
District Attorney internship 
like I wanted to, I forced myself 
to spend 10 weeks at the Salt 
Marsh Nature Center building 
bat houses and creating urban 
gardens. Instead of taking the 
senior year elective, “Western 
Political Theory,” that I had 
my eye on since freshman 
year, I signed up for “Urban 
Ecology.” In fear of not being 
able to show one constant 
interest, I gave up the chance 
to pursue the varying interests 
I had and wound up sticking 
with environmentalism for my 
entire high school career. The 
one thing that provided me 
some comfort was college and, 
specifically, the opportunity 
it would provide me to truly 
explore and delve into all my 
interests. And that’s exactly 

what I have been doing.

With high school still fresh 

in my mind, I have been 
intentionally selfish at the 
University. Instead of making 
decisions based on what I 
think I should be doing for 
graduate school or my parents, 
I have been making decisions 
based on what I want and it 
has been incredible. However, 
I have quickly realized that 
not everyone has the same 
mindset. Entering college, I 
was very transparent about 
my lack of direction. Though 
I had some idea of the path I 
wanted to take, things were 
still very up in the air, and 
honestly, they still are. When 
I was meeting dozens of new 
people throughout the first 
few weeks, I was so impressed 
with how confident each of 
them were in their primary 
interests. It made me feel like 
I was doing something wrong. 
But then, after those initial 
weeks passed and I really got 
to know my friends, I realized 
the truth: there are very few 
freshmen who actually know 
what they are doing or what 
they want, but not many who 
can admit it. 

I 
have 
had 
countless 

conversations 
with 
people 

who all have had crises over 
a lack of direction and every 
time all I have wanted to do 
was to scream in their face: it’s 

okay to not know! One of my 
pre-medicine friends switched 
to 
business 
and 
another 

future doctor is considering 
app design layouts; I wish 
everyone could realize that 
there is time to figure out 
what you truly want to do. I 
will concede that the looming 
presence of declaring a major 
and finishing its prerequisite 
courses 
is 
definitely 
a 

legitimate concern. However, 
hearing yet another of my 
friends 
complaining 
about 

her solely pre-med guided 
schedule and the fact that she 
is unable to take other classes 
that interest her makes it 
clear how important it is to 
experiment a bit. 

I know that being undecided 

can feel scary and like you are 
losing some sort of lifetime 
race, but I can assure you 
that is not the case. If in 
the beginning of semester 
icebreakers people revealed 
how they actually felt about 
their future, it would be 
clear 
that 
the 
community 

of undecided or uncertain 
undergraduates is much larger 
than it appears. At the end of 
the day, the stigma around 
being undecided is completely 
unfounded. 
College 
is 

such a unique and special 
opportunity to finally delve 
into all the interests you have. 
Don’t waste it.

T

he day will eventually 
come. It’s not a matter of if 
— but when — the COVID-

19 pandemic will be formally 
declared over. Unfortunately, those 
of us who have continued to take 
the appropriate steps to mitigate 
the virus’ spread are still subject 
to some of the same restrictions 
in place since early 2020. A seven-
day, nationwide average of nearly 
500,000 COVID-19 cases almost 
two years after the start of the 
pandemic is clearly a testament to 
the failures of two administrations. 
However, it is well beyond dispute 
that the Republican Party and 
its supporters do not believe in 
science. It would be generous to say 
that only some of the GOP’s voting 
base wears its abject ignorance as a 
sort of perverse badge of honor.

It is not arguable in good faith 

that all Americans share equal 
blame for our present predicament. 
Young and old, north and south, east 
and west, conservative Republicans 
are the reason the pandemic is still 
raging in the U.S. They are, to quote 
former President Donald Trump, 
why “the world is laughing at us.” 
Indeed, the pandemic is equally a 
matter of politics as it is a matter 
of science. There are numerous 
documented stories of patients, 
thoroughly gaslit and laying on 
their 
deathbeds, 
regurgitating 

the 
same 
baseless 
COVID-19 

conspiracy theories being spread 
by Republican leaders. To put it 
simply, Republican politicians are 
killing their own voters. 

Much of this is settled in (the 

attached-to-reality portion of) 
the public square. To rehash how 
we’ve arrived at such a patently 
preposterous moment in world 
history would be fruitless. The 
only worthwhile course of action 
this late into the pandemic is 
to discuss how best to move 
forward with this virus as an 
inevitable part of life, as has been 
the case with the flu for the last 
century.

It might be jarring to hear that 

sentiment coming from a bleeding-
heart liberal, especially one who 
has 
repeatedly 
lambasted 
the 

American Conservative movement 
over 
COVID-19. 
However, 

Republicans have won their war 
on medicine at least to the extent 
that this virus becoming endemic 
appears a logical, if not foregone, 
conclusion. As such, waiting for 
the virus to be eradicated before 
proceeding with a return to pre-
pandemic life is akin to asking 
Santa for a pet unicorn this year. 

My proposal for Americans to be 

able to live with COVID-19 while 
still living our lives might seem a bit 
draconian at first glance. However, 
I would argue that it is exactly as 
nihilistic and petty as the nonsense 
to which we sane, sentient human 
beings have been subjected to by 
the COVID-19 denial class for 
almost two years. This proposal, 
though, makes scientific — and 
cathartic — sense, especially in a 
city such as Ann Arbor, of which 
young people are its lifeblood. We, 
as University of Michigan students, 
are the engine which drives our 
city and our institution. We are 
also required by our school to be 
fully vaccinated and to receive a 
booster dose, which is known to 
substantially reduce the risk of 
severe illness. Why, then, should we 
bear responsibility for the public 
health risks being taken by the 37% 
of Washtenaw County residents 
who remain unvaccinated? It is 
with that in mind that the city of 
Ann Arbor should take steps that 
will both encourage those holdouts 
to get vaccinated while removing 
the burden of their stupidity from 
those who have followed the advice 
of public health professionals.

As it stands now, University 

students are expected to wear 
masks, limit the size of social 
gatherings, 
limit 
travel 
and 

quarantine for an extended time 
with a positive COVID-19 test. That 
all sounded great in 2020, but now, 
the student body is vaccinated, and 
likely to show only minor symptoms 
for only a short number of days, if 
we were to show any symptoms 
at all. All of that is to say that U-M 
students face a low risk if they 
contract COVID-19, but we are still 
behaving as if it is the monumental, 
universal public health threat it was 
nearly two years ago. 

U-M students, who have suffered 

the loss of much of our college 
experience for it, must no longer be 
responsible for the choices of the 
unvaccinated. Provided that it can 
be done so legally – and given the 
emergency powers of the executive 
at the state and federal levels, that 
shouldn’t be a problem – hospitals 
nationwide must begin a triage 
process for access to COVID care. 
Hospitals nationwide are facing 
capacity and equipment shortages 
nearly two full years into the 
pandemic, and almost a year after 
vaccines became available. At this 
point, some burden of responsibility 
must be on the individual who has 
refused to be vaccinated. 

Given that there are finite 

resources to be dedicated to 
COVID patients, there must be 
some form of hierarchy in place to 
ensure that those who continue to 
place the whole of society at risk 
are accounted for only after life-
saving treatment has been directed 
to all vaccinated patients in need 
of care. As hospitals are plagued 
by the unrelenting stupidity of the 
Republican–led anti-vax crusade, it 
is only fair to exercise discretion in 
the distribution of care. None of this 
is to say the unvaccinated should 
be 
altogether 
denied 
medical 

care. 
However, 
by 
permitting 

doctors and hospitals to exercise 
discretion as to who receives 
prioritized COVID-19-related care, 
federal, state and local authorities 
(depending on the level at which 
such a policy is instituted) would be 
rewarding two of the demographics 
most adversely affected by COVID-
19: youth and medical professionals. 
Doing so is both a logical and moral 
imperative. 

Such a policy would also not 

fall outside the scope of standard 
medical practices, even before the 
pandemic. It is a longstanding, and 
eminently sensible, procedure in 
the medical community to triage 
patients based on chances of 
survival when faced with limited 
space, resources, equipment or 
personnel; those with a higher 
chance of survival are prioritized, 
so as to most efficiently and 
effectively allocate finite materials. 
Suffice to say, the COVID situation 
has placed all of those limitations 
on hospitals across the country. It 
doesn’t take an epidemiologist to 
know that the patients most likely to 
survive hospitalization are the ones 
who are vaccinated. Therefore, in 
addition to the moral imperative of 
prioritizing those who have taken 
steps to protect those around them, 
a triage system would also make for 
the best solution to the constraints 
faced by hospitals nationwide. 
While it is true that this will likely 
never come to pass, it is well past 
time for young Americans — all 
vaccinated 
Americans, 
really 

— to ask that the burden of the 
pandemic be placed on those too 
self-righteous to help end it. The 
sane 63% must not suffer for the 
ignorance of the insufferable 37%.

We, as college students, have lost 

so much since March 2020. It’s not 
just the tangible losses of COVID-
19 deaths that have cost people 
our age recently. Adolescents and 
young adults have been deprived of 
opportunities and life experiences, 
which, uniquely to us, we will 
never be able to get back. Whether 
it was the inability to study abroad, 
to celebrate or congregate in large 
groups or simply to interact with 
our professors and peers in person 
or unmasked, none of these things 
are replaceable in later life. College 
students continue to be deprived 
of 
their 
once-in-a-lifetime 

college experience because of 
older people who believe their 
“personal freedoms” trump — 
pun intended — the public good. 
Adults who lost their jobs are now 
faced with the best job market in a 
generation. Those who had to work 
remotely were able to experience 
a traditional work environment 
before — and will be able to 
again at some point. Experiences 
associated 
with 
youth 
and 

adolescence are nearly impossible 
to replicate, while more “adult” 
milestones can still be achieved 
later on. It is time for young people 
to take some agency in our lives, 
and stop allowing the older, and 
dumber, among us to dictate which 
formative experiences we deserve 
to enjoy. We won’t get these years 
back.

 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Opinion
10 — Wednesday, January 26, 2022 

Design by Anya Singh, Opinion Cartoonist

College students are 

proof: it’s time to learn to 

live with COVID-19

JACK ROSHCO
Opinion Columnist

Individual 0

Design by Ambika Tripathi, Opinion Cartoonist

PALAK SRIVASTAVA

Opinion Columnist

Undecided major = failure?

lonely -m

