7 Classes I Wish I Could Take Again

As a 2020 graduate, it is easy to wish for time before the world was plunged into quarantine. Instead, let me share a few classes I had taken that make me thankful for my time on campus.

It's always interesting to ask someone 'where were you when Covid happened?' because it doesn't have a definitive start (or end, as we've seen). Instead, people will answer this question with the moment Covid impacted them directly.

I remember hearing about it in November and December of 2019, but not thinking much of it. My sister, who worked with a travel company at the time, told our family that plans are being cancelled and travel was going to halt. We nodded, but never believed this would happen.

My Senior Spring

Let's skip ahead to the first week of March in 2020, where I was spending Spring Break with my mother. I got an email from the University of Miami, announcing to all students and staff that Spring Break was extended by another week. The response? Hundreds of tweets and Instagram captions saying 'Thanks Covid'.

My mother and I were skeptical, and I returned back to campus to pack up my apartment. It was a stressful time, with a lot of misinformation firing around, but I convinced my friend that we needed to leave Florida and get back home as soon as we could. After a couple days, we were fully packed and spent the last of our college meal credits on water bottles and snacks for our three day road-trip.

We made it to Georgia before the University announced that students would not be allowed back on campus and we would be continuing the school year virtually. Crushed, my friends and I FaceTimed and called, we did everything we could to see each other on a regular basis.

Next to Normal

School continued, a watered-down version of a semester while the rest of the world came crashing down. In May I closed my laptop and went downstairs. I had finished my last class of my college career. I received an email, I had graduated. I got my diploma in the mail, bent in half to fit inside the mailbox. Life went on. No graduation walk, no study sessions in the library for finals, not even proper goodbyes to friends.

I was, however, safe. I was healthy, able to return home and be with loved ones. 2020 is a year I will never forget, a year I will not remember fondly when I think about my time at University, but it will not define my college experience.

My Favorite Classes

There were moments during classes that I thought about how lucky I was to be there and how much I loved learning about the material. I began to keep a list, and I would love to share my thoughts on these courses as I believe that they held the most valuable lessons.

In no particular order the classes I wish I could take again, as if rereading a favorite book, are the following:

PSY - Child and Adolescent Development

TAL - American Sign Language

ENG - Creative Writing (Prose Fiction)

ENG - Old English Language and Literature

ENG - Literature and Psychoanalytic Theory

ENG - Creative Writing (Several classes taught by Chantel Acevedo)

KIN - Personal and Community Health

As I reflect on these courses, I will link them to their respective articles so share more on each course and why these classes were so influential to me.