I felt like I was seven again, leaving my stuffed animal behind the day I placed my pajamas in a drawer and pulled on a pair of jeans to go back to campus. If someone had told me four years ago that my last first day of school would be during a pandemic and that my university would be adopting a “hybrid model,” I would probably have asked what half of those words meant. By now, we are all familiar with the terminology and way too used to typing into a chat box to get participation points, but nothing really prepares you for what happens when you have to step foot on campus again after a year and a half of existing as a cyber student. 

Being a fourth-year student with one full year of normal campus life under my belt, one year that was cut short, one year of being completely online and now a month of U of T’s hybrid learning model, please allow my unlucky experiences to be your unlikely guide. 

First, I will begin by addressing the elephant in the hybrid-modeled room: what do I do if I have a class in person then another class online immediately after? 

Rest assured, it is possible (granted you are not easily embarrassed). If your professor is partial to first-day introductions and you have fallen victim to the hybrid model then you understand what embarrassment I am referring to: that humbling moment when you have to open your laptop in a public area, turn on your camera to reveal your masked self and awkwardly whisper a response to the question “what do you hope to get out of this course?” to your classmates through a screen. If your professor rephrases the question to a more general “why are you here?” you may take a look at your current situation and begin to wonder the same thing yourself. 

Mild humiliation aside, attending a class on zoom after attending a class on campus really is doable. By now, you have probably taken a liking to a particular library or common room where you feel comfortable conducting yourself in a virtual classroom. (My biased recommendation is the Innis College common room.) Plus, now you can ask yourself what you enjoy more: online classes, classes in person, or classes online in person! 

Speaking of places to go on campus, you are probably wondering how you are supposed to enter King’s Circle with all the construction being done. I was confounded by the very same thing when two first-year students trusted me to guide them to their class at University College that began in fifteen minutes. What started as me feeling like a mother duck with her eager ducklings trailing behind and being thrilled to meet new students and help them get to where they needed to go, quickly turned into what I can imagine looked more like the three blind mice stumbling to their destination. It became the blind leading the blind as I took these patient students to three different entrances before finding one that was not blocked by construction. 

Moral of the story: enter through the St. George side.

If you struggle with directions, you may be finding the social distancing arrows plastered around the university’s buildings helpful. One type of sign that I find particularly helpful are the “Enter/Exit” labels on doors. If, after a year of lockdown and online classes you have forgotten how doors work, these signs are here to help. The university has even gone a step further to include arrows on the floor indicating that you can indeed enter and exit through the one door you have in your classroom. 

Jokes aside, I have noticed a better flow of foot traffic with the social distancing arrows compared to previous years on campus, so if you are still feeling uneasy about being on campus I find that this is a measure that has helped eliminate crowding. 

While a crowded campus may be anxiety-inducing due to our current pandemic climate, talking to students in-person after a year of asking a laptop screen “can you hear me?” may prove even more of a stressor. Luckily, after a year of not interacting with students on campus, your possible conversation starters are boundless as there is much to catch up on. Try asking someone how they found their online experience last year or if they have any classes that are completely online this year. Take advantage of our unprecedented times! If the pandemic has given us one thing it is a common experience that we can use to spark up conversations and make new friends. 

I hope you find comfort in these tips and observations and feel less alone attempting to navigate your way around campus again (or perhaps for the first time). If this pandemic has taught us anything it is resilience, so hang in there! On the bright side, I think we can all list adaptability as a skill on our resumes now.