The gray sky over Tucson on Wednesday seemed to match the mood of some students at the University of Arizona returning to a campus that felt more like a ghost town than the usual busyness of the final push toward the end of the spring semester.
It was the first day of classes after an extended spring break as the campus stayed mostly open while many students moved away as the university moved to online courses under rules instituted during the virus outbreak. It was the first day to move out of dorms for students like Max Tucker, a sophomore studying material science, who can go elsewhere to finish the semester.
Tucker acknowledged he’ll miss the independence of living on his own as he prepared moved out of the Villa del Puente dormitories, accompanied by his mother, Sarah.
“It’s kind of like going to summer early,” Tucker said. “I feel kind of a convenience by it, but it’s nothing that I can’t get used to. It’s not too bad; it’s just some classes are a little harder to get used to than others like labs, you can’t really do that online.”
He’s yet to decide if he’ll take the university’s offer of a 10% credit to his account in May or let 20% of his rent paid to apply to his possible return to dorms in the fall.
Tucker also finds himself in the same boat as other students who were working in labs before spring break.
For freshmen Rebecca Trail and Aiko Robles, they were sad to see the campus in its current state. They wondered how their teacher will find alternatives to their chemistry labs after they cleared their lockers that held class equipment.
“It was my chemistry class, the lab portion of that is going to be interesting because they literally just canceled and said, ‘We’ll figure something out,’” Trail said. “Who knows?”
“We literally just grabbed all of our stuff,” Robles said. “They told us to get all of our personal belongings from our lockers.”
As the campus closed doors to most of its services, the freshmen are making their own adjustments as they finish the semester.
“It’ll definitely be weird, because I wanted to stay on campus as long as I could because I’m out of state,” Trail said. “But I’m still going to stay in Tucson, just partner with other people because it’s hard to stay on now because everything is closing.”
Students visiting eateries on campus were often met with closed signs, near flyers touting methods to slow the spread of coronavirus.
The Student Union closed restaurants after a proclamation from Tucson Mayor Regina Romero requiring takeout only. The union’s kitchen now sells boxed food for takeout from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Jakob Hill, a senior in computer science, arrived on campus during breakfast time and found these eateries closed.
“I was a bit disappointed. I do like coming here, just being away from work and home and all that,” said Hill, adding he’d prefer not to end the semester under these conditions.
“I was also disappointed for my class, because I really like how we we’re doing our class in terms of the whole participation and the lecture style, and all that would be affected, probably negatively, by this whole thing.”
Max Tucker and his mother both agreed that the seniors won’t be able to experience all that a final semester brings just before graduation.
“There was no time. They didn’t have time to say goodbye,” Sarah Tucker said. “I mean they didn’t even have time to pack. We’re just throwing things together. Some people you’ll never see again and you never had a chance to say goodbye.”
