Tourists enjoy a socially-distant afternoon in the Yard.
When she lived on campus, Julia Welsh â23 spent most of her time focusing on classes and hanging out with friends.
Once the coronavirus upended her collegiate life, Welsh, who has lived at home in Philadelphia this past year, took on a slew of responsibilities outside of her coursework, including supporting her family financially, buying groceries, and completing household chores.
Overwhelmed, Welsh said she was forced to prioritize her obligations to her family over her academics, prompting her to drop one of her fall courses.
âI remember being really disappointed in myself,â Welsh said. âIf I was on campus, Iâd probably be able to focus more and I would have more time to not deal with family responsibilities and to focus on this class that I ended up dropping.â
UPDATED: Thursday, March 11 at 3:40 p.m.
Benjamin A. âBenâ Ray â24, an international student from England, hasnât set foot on Harvardâs campus as a student, much less experienced residential life at the College.
Yet on Thursday morning, when housing lottery registration closes, he and hundreds of other international freshmen â who have been restricted from Harvard campus life by international visa restrictions â will commit to a group of up to eight students with which to be placed in one of Harvardâs 12 upperclassman houses for the next three years.
Ray said it was âdifficultâ to find potential blockmates since he did not live on campus last semester; he eventually defaulted to blocking with fellow members of the rowing team.
Looking ahead to the 2021-2022 academic year, Dean of Students Katherine G. OâDair said her office aspires to âhave as normal a fall as we canâ in a Monday interview.
Ever since being dispersed from campus almost exactly one year ago due to the burgeoning Covid-19 crisis, students at the College have taken courses online. While many undergraduates have been studying from afar, some returned to campus to do their coursework in Harvardâs dorms. The College welcomed back freshmen and a select group of upperclassmen to campus in the fall; this spring, it invited seniors, enrolled juniors, and students with personal or environmental learning difficulties to move into its residential spaces.
House Committee chairs said they are working to create as normal of a Housing Day as possible this month, despite the abnormal circumstances of a virtual Housing Day for the second consecutive year amid an ongoing global pandemic.
âWe want to try and continue the traditions, and weâre in a very untraditional circumstance being virtual,â Liam M. F. Hall â23, a Quincy House Committee chair, said.
Housing Day â slated to take place on March 12 â is an annual spirited tradition in which upperclassmen âdorm-stormâ freshmen to inform them of their assignment to one of the twelve upperclassmen houses. House Committee chairs are responsible for planning Housing Day events for their respective houses, which typically include recording a house-themed music video and planning house-wide socials.
âI feel like a caveman,â said Alexander D. âAlexâ Kontoyiannis â23, describing his experience studying for his organic chemistry midterm Tuesday night.
âMy room was pitch black, and I was just hunched over my desk with nothing but a flashlight, trying to look at my paper,â he said.
Kontoyiannis â along with millions of other Americans â was left without power this week as a severe winter storm pummeled pockets of the United States, leaving at least 47 dead.
Though the storm has caused power outages in multiple states, Texas experienced the most expansive power outages â in part due to the stateâs unique self-reliant energy grid.