'We're here, we graduated': ASU's COVID-19 class reflects on unique college experience

Ruby Rodriguez still remembers the chaos of the first week of online classes during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As her instructors tried to figure out how to teach virtually, she spent her time trapped in her family home with her younger brother while her parents continued going to work.

"He's a quiet kid when he wants to be," she said, laughing. "It wasn't bad until he started bugging me while I was in class."

Rodriguez, 24, was a student at Glendale Community College at the time. A year later, she would transfer to Arizona State University to pursue a teaching degree.

As she sat among thousands of ASU graduates at the university's primary undergraduate commencement ceremony on Monday, she said she was grateful that she got through some of her college years before the pandemic.

But she knows she still lost out on some experiences, including classroom instruction opportunities. Instead of entering schools to get hands-on teaching experience, Rodriguez joined virtual classrooms for about 30 minutes each week, she said.

"I didn't really get to do much," she said, adding that she was later able to enter classrooms in person as schools reopened.

The Class of 2023 graduates have varying experiences with the pandemic.

Some, interrupted in their first year of campus living, best remember the social isolation.

Others, like Rodriguez, took longer to complete their degrees and experienced college life both before the pandemic and after.

A few of ASU's spring graduates were pursuing degrees online before COVID-19 hit the U.S. These students saw their peers struggle to adapt to virtual classes with which they were already familiar.

Students who spoke with The Arizona Republic at Monday's ceremony generally agreed that the shadow of the pandemic loomed large over their college experience.

"We have a lot of resistance and endurance to really overcome any obstacle," said Jennifer Jaimes Gomez, 23. "We saw ourselves be more adaptable to change. ... It was something that really helped to broaden the perspective of learning."

For some, a positive side

ASU's online programs began in 2010, long before the pandemic.

When campuses across the nation shut down in March 2020, nothing changed for online students like Olivia Davis, a student from Dallas studying sales, marketing and communications.

But Davis noticed a definitive tone shift in how her campus-educated peers and those outside the school environment thought of students studying virtually. In some ways, the pandemic leveled the playing field for online students, she said.

"People got online and realized how hard it was to do time management and really sit down and work on these things and watch your lectures from videos," she said. "Honestly, I got more praise than ever, which is awesome."

She wasn't alone. Patricia Moody, who attended ASU virtually while living and working in Seattle, said the pandemic helped in-person students better understand the pressures of remote learning.

"They have to kind of work on their own time, rather than the teacher's time," she said.

That doesn't mean online students didn't still struggle amid COVID-19.

Charlene Galloway, 54, said she ended up taking time away from her online program in the weeks after the country shut down.

She got stranded in Las Vegas when flights to her home in Miami were suddenly canceled amid fears of the virus, she said. For a while, it all became too much.

"I went to my adviser, and I was like, 'I can't,'" Galloway said.

Galloway is a Starbucks employee and said the company paid for her education. Amid the pandemic, she worked in its retail coffee stores and said customer interactions also took a toll.

"We saw people that didn't believe it was real and didn't take it serious," she said. "And here we are, we're just trying to take care of each other."

She ultimately came back for an online class in summer 2020, and continued her degree, moving up through the ranks of Starbucks.

"I winded up in a corporate position," she said. "And it was because of ASU."

A generational gap

Oscar Leal, 59, said he knows that his college experience was different than that of his daughter, Annika, 22.

"They didn't experience the true meaning of being in college: being in classrooms, meeting new people," he said. "So I think that had a big effect."

As an in-person student on the university's Tempe campus, Annika Leal had an active social life before the pandemic, but ended up living alone once it began, she said.

"It was definitely a big change, going from a dorm that was full of students to a room completely by myself," she said.

Nevertheless, she persevered, double majoring in business law and finance. As she hugged her loved ones and celebrated with her family after the commencement ceremony, she said everybody experienced the pandemic differently.

COVID-19 might define her class, she said, but it doesn't define her and her classmates' capabilities.

"If anything, I think this generation and our class brings more to the table because of that experience," she said. "So while it was a negative experience and it was a difficult obstacle to overcome, we're here, we graduated, and that says a lot."

By the numbers: A look at ASU's graduating class

Sasha Hupka covers higher education for The Arizona Republic. Do you have a tip on Arizona's universities, community colleges or trade schools? Reach her at sasha.hupka@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter: @SashaHupka.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: ASU's COVID-19 class reflects on a unique college experience