“Even in my history class we’ve had a couple of people get covid so now there’s this fear.”

Junior Garrett Mellentine is an education student at UWM. He talked with Niko Barrientos about dealing with the “new normal” on campus.

Niko Barrientos: What has it been like transitioning back to in-person classes after being online for so long?

Garrett Mellentine: For me it’s been about trying to get back to normal since It’s been so long. It took a really long time for me to start getting used to it all again, but after a month I’m feeling more comfortable. The biggest thing for me has been having the opportunity again to see our instructors face to face and be able to walk up and speak to them.

Niko: Throughout the whole pandemic what have you done to stay physically and socially active.

Garrett: Well, whenever the lockdown first happened there wasn’t really anything we could do to stay social with anybody. Over the last year, I’ve been able to meet a lot of people from my work and made a couple of good connections. Now with school being back I’ve been able to make connections with people in classes and around campus.

Niko: Have those social interactions around campus been different or difficult this year?

Garrett: Of course, it’s been a big issue, when it comes to things like masks or social distancing it makes it hard to connect or even talk with a person. Even in my History class we’ve had a couple of people get covid so now there’s this fear associated with getting too close in that class. We now have to sit in an assigned seat, which is hard for a large class like ours, so yeah things are definitely different.

Niko: Do you think those sorts of rules like masks and social distancing makes it hard to make friends in classes or on campuses?

Garrett: Definitely, because you have to be very self-conscious about things whenever you’re around a large group of people. You also need to keep in mind that there are a lot of different opinions when it comes to covid and stuff of that manner, so you have to respect people’s viewpoints no matter if you agree or not.

Niko: It seems like you’ve really missed having social interactions.

Garrett: Yeah, over the last year or so you definitely take for granted to social aspects of life and over a long period of time you do start to miss those face-to-face interactions that were really common.

Niko: Is there a specific social event or activity that you missed that you finally do again?

Garrett: There’s a lot I’ve missed, but with the MLB playoffs happening now I’ll say that I definitely missed going to baseball games. Over the summer I went to plenty of Brewers games and it was really fun to go to a game after having to watch them on TV last year. I’m also really excited to actually watch the Bucks in person again

Niko: It sounds like it was a bummer having to sit around strictly watching sports on television.

Garrett:  It definitely did for me and I bet it sucked for the players of those teams too, because every time you watched a game the stadiums were completely empty. It was nice that they still played though, it helped me have something new to talk about with people whenever we were all stuck inside.

Niko: To you, what makes in person sporting events that special?

Garrett: It really lets people come together and be able to talk and socialize about something you all have in common. Especially over the last year it can help to bring a group of people or a community together. I went to the Deer District even during the Finals last summer and that was a lot of fun, it was the first sports-related thing I went to in a long time so it was especially special to me. Seeing the crowd react to the Bucks winning the title it was something special, that you can’t feel over a TV screen.