“I feel like there really is a big lack of community within the school, specifically with events.”

Regan Rayl is a Junior at UW-Milwaukee pursuing Advertising and Digital Arts and Culture.  Rayl is a member of the advertising club as well as a social media intern. In the fall of 2019, after completion of her freshman semester, the COVID pandemic forced her into online schooling for the next three semesters before she returned to campus in fall of 2021.

Brian Kohr: How was the experience of doing school during the covid pandemic?

Regan Rayl: Well, it was difficult because I never got to finish my freshman year, and once I went home, I didn’t feel like a college student anymore.  I’m from Illinois so I stayed home for all my sophomore year. I just kind of felt disconnected from UWM because I was doing all my online classes and most of them were asynchronous.  Coming back to campus this year I still felt like I had the mentality of being a freshman.  It was strange. I didn’t know where a lot of things were on campus.  Technically, I only finished one semester on campus, and I was already preparing to graduate. It was so weird.

Q: I know your time as a freshman on campus was cut short, but is there anything you can point to that’s different about campus life compared to now?

A: I feel like there’s less events. As a freshman, I feel like I was always going to events. Now, I don’t know if clubs stopped happening or disbanded or if they’re just not comfortable having big groups of people.  I feel like there really is a big lack of community within the school, specifically with events.

Q: How do you think masks have affected people on campus and do you think it has made students more reserved around their peers?

A: I don’t know I didn’t really have a problem wearing them. I didn’t mind the teachers wearing them either because it didn’t affect the way I learned, and it didn’t affect the way I talked to my classmates.  To be honest, I don’t think it was masks that have made people more reserved, I think it’s because a lot of people are in the same position that I’m in.  We were just freshman and all of a sudden were upperclassmen.  So, just the element of being in our shells socially and not really knowing how to talk to new people.  I don’t think it was the masks but rather the distance from online learning that set people back in terms of making friends in class.

Q: How do you think things have changed in society and the workplace from the pandemic?

A: The world knows we can do things online now, especially with things like advertising and graphic design.  A lot of the internships and jobs I’m looking into are remote and that’s good because being remote is something I’ve become comfortable with.  At the same time, it’s sad I’m only 20 years old and I’ve never been in a professional job setting and probably never will be in one like how it was pre-covid.  I do feel like there are more opportunities to do more things that I would have never been able to, but then, at the same time, I’m doing it in my room.  Am I really getting the same experience with coworkers and talking to people in person?