On March 13, 2020, Brown students were sent home as the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread across the country. About two years later, on March 14, 2022, the University announced that masks and testing would become optional. This week, we spoke with Senior Writer Ashley Guo about her reporting on how student life has changed over the past two years.

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Finn Kirkpatrick

Welcome to Bruno Brief. I am Finn Kirkpatrick.

This week, almost exactly two years ago, Brown sent his students packing as the COVID-19 pandemic began to spread across the world. Now, on March 14 of this year, the University officially lifted its mask-wearing requirement for on-campus activities. And reflecting on this somewhat poetically timed return to relative normality, senior writer Ashley Guo thought it might be time to ask some Brown students: How have you changed in the past two years? In this episode, we hear from Ashley and the three college students she spoke with about how the pandemic has changed their world.

Hello, Ashley, thank you for being here today.

Ashley Guo

Hi, thanks for inviting me.

Finn Kirkpatrick

So what made you want to report this story?

Ashley Guo

When Brown announced that they were going to go mask-optional on March 14, it sort of reminded me that two years ago, for me, actually, exactly on March 14, everything kind of came together stopped. And I was just thinking about how much I had changed in the past two years and wondering if other students had the same experience.

Finn Kirkpatrick

Who did you tell about their experiences and why?

Ashley Guo

I spoke to Minnie Zhang ’25. She’s a freshman, and I thought it would be really interesting to see how her experience was impacted, especially being in high school and applying to colleges during that time. And I spoke to Maddie Noh ’22. She is a senior citizen and she has been in Providence all the time off campus since most of her family is international. And then also Emily Vesper ’24. I spoke with Emily Vesper about her home and remote experience during her freshman year at Brown.

Finn Kirkpatrick

And what was the most surprising thing you learned from doing these interviews?

Ashley Guo

I think for me the most surprising part was the diversity of experiences. Because throughout the pandemic, everyone kind of feels like it was the same mental health issues, or fatigue, or burnout and hardship. But in fact, everyone had a very different experience of these common topics. So, although we are somewhat united and living through the pandemic together, I feel like each person has a unique experience to share.

Finn Kirkpatrick

By conducting these interviews, how have the lives and mindsets of these students changed throughout their college experience during COVID?

Ashley Guo

Everyone kind of had their eyes opened to different parts of life that they probably wouldn’t have experienced otherwise, especially during the pandemic. In the summer of 2020, there’s this big movement where we were looking at racism in our community, in our country. And that was an important topic where students became more critical of the world we live in. And maybe the time spent in isolation has given people time to think about it, while figuring out how to create a new model of life in a different world. everyone matured pretty quickly.

Minnie Zhang

COVID has really slowed down the world. And when you’re living things go by so fast, you don’t really get a chance to process things sometimes. I’m from Richmond, Virginia, and in June 2020, summer 2020, we were the site of the Confederate statue protests. I had always known that this aspect of racism existed. It’s just that it had been so normalized for me. It took national media coverage for me to step back and see my hometown from a perspective other than my own.

Finn Kirkpatrick

It was Minnie Zhang.

And did you get any idea of ​​what they learned and the difficulties they went through during that time?

Ashley Guo

Overall, people learned more about themselves. Because during isolation people tend to have a lot of time to reflect on themselves and be introspective, but I think they also need to think more about our communities and how we can contribute to them as well as ‘to a general awareness of, I don’t know, there’s the importance of being together in a community.

Finn Kirkpatrick

And what about your own experience that inspired you to make this story?

Ashley Guo

So I’m currently a sophomore, which means when it all stopped, I was a senior in high school, and now I’m 20 and I’m on the East Coast instead of the West Coast. And I feel like it really changed the way I approach stressful times or think about my mental health. In the past, I feel like I didn’t consider these things as much. But after a tough first year, I feel like I learned a lot about how to deal with stress and conflict and learn from it.

Finn Kirkpatrick

So what major themes emerged throughout each individual experience you heard?

Ashley Guo

Mental health and stress were major themes. I remember Maddy sharing a lot about how, because everything was online, she kind of took on more than she could handle with virtual opportunities. Since it’s easy to think that even if you’re not physically somewhere, it will somehow cost you less energy, as well as general mental health issues, because isolation can be difficult.

Maddy Noh

Even though I found it very enlightening in many ways to be able to have more access to things because it was virtual and remote, actually I don’t think it’s that good for my mental health in general .

Finn Kirkpatrick

It was Maddy Noh.

What current impacts of the pandemic have you noticed on students, even as things slowly return to normal?

Ashley Guo

There is a general feeling of exhaustion or exhaustion, especially in my class. Because I would say sophomore year, because we went through that for about four semesters in a row with no real break in between. And I feel like there’s just a general exhaustion of everything we’ve had to deal with. But there is also some hope for the future as things seem to be looking up and we have certainly all learned something from that time. So I think we all came out of this a bit hopefully stronger and better.

Emilie Vesper

I had never had the experience of really wrestling in school before, in this way. And I think in this circumstance, which happened in the spring and again in the summer, it kind of led me to choose to be mentally and physically well and to make choices that were positive for some kind of holistic look at my life, not just like trying to get the best grades possible.

Ashley Guo

It was Emily Vesper.

Finn Kirkpatrick

How do they think this experience will change their lives going forward in a somewhat post-pandemic world?

Ashley Guo

Geez, everyone in some way expressed that they learned lessons or looked at the world in a different way. They examine themselves in a different way, what they can handle, what is good for them, what is not. And I think these new lessons will probably inform how they act in the future.

Finn Kirkpatrick

Thanks so much for being here, Ashley.

Ashley Guo

Sure.

Finn Kirkpatrick

That’s it for this week’s Bruno Brief. Our show is produced by Katy Pickens, Livi Burdett, Jacob Smollen, Lella Wirth and me, Finn Kirkpatrick. If you like what you hear, subscribe to Bruno Brief wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you very much for listening. We’ll see you next week.