As lockdown measures began and social interactions came to a halt, individuals looked to separate places for feelings of solace. Vedha Geethakrishnan, a freshman, took this time to strengthen bonds within her family while also learning to not rely on others for happiness. To counter the sudden lack of structure in her daily life, she filled up her time by exploring old hobbies in more depth.

Q: What age and grade level were you at when Covid hit?

A: I was in fifth grade, so I must have been around 11 years old. When I entered fifth grade and started sixth grade, I did half of the year virtually and the rest of my first year of Middle School on hybrid learning.

Q: How was your general experience during quarantine?

A: I honestly enjoyed it. Most people argued that it wasn’t the best time because they were isolated but it was a time that I had extra time bonding with my family. And I really got to enjoy that.

Q: How did you adjust your daily life and habits? Did any of these habits continue after Covid’s lockdown?

A: I used to read almost every day because there wasn’t that much homework. I used to spend hours on Sora, which is a digital reading platform. And that sort of got me through every day. 

Q: How much did you communicate with other people during quarantine? What was your preferred method of communication?

A: It was difficult to communicate with other people because all the people in my elementary school went to a different middle school than me. So I had to start over from scratch. And it was quite difficult making friends with people online so I didn’t really have that much face to face or online interaction with several people.

Q: How much effort did you put in your classes during distance learning?

A: I’m gonna be honest, I didn’t put that much effort into my classes because I knew that at the time teachers didn’t expect much from us as students either. The classes were pretty leisurely and assignments were watered down.

Q: How was your academic growth compared to other years?

A: Academically, I didn’t grow as much compared to other years because I was never challenged as a student at the time […] the leniency caused me to temporarily believe that school would always be that easy, but unfortunately, I was proved wrong.

Q: Is there anything you would have done differently if you could go back?

A: I think I would have tried to try to make more friends despite the limited interactions. But I think that the solitude and some isolation taught me to look for comfort within myself and try to find happiness, like, without the need to go to other people for it.

Q: Where did you find comfort or solace during this time?

A: [My parents] got me my first laptop, and I learned how to open up YouTube and listen to music. It was like a new kind of freedom because my parents were not choosing songs for me, but rather, I was learning how to choose them for myself. And finding all these new artists was an amazing way to also kind of discover myself along the way too.

Q: How was your emotional state in Covid?

A:  I was pretty happy during quarantine even though I missed my friends. The connection between us was slowly starting to disintegrate. I knew that even though I didn’t have any friends it would take time and patience for them to come eventually in my life. 

Q: Did you learn anything new about yourself and what you’re capable of handling?

A: Life can take a dramatic turn anytime it wants. And then you have to learn how to adapt yourself to it whenever that occurs. You have to try to find that comfort and happiness regardless of what life throws at you. And I think that’s an important skill to learn, especially since, the more you grow the faster time moves and you’re stuck with feeling like ‘I know this won’t last forever’. So I just have to make the most of what I can right now.