Although this past year was one I never could have anticipated when I envisioned my “Bruin experience” as a Freshmen, it's one that has taught me a lot about myself and made me all the more grateful for being a student at UCLA. Primarily, my life has changed most drastically in that I currently live with my family up North, and have switched my old roommates out for my two corgis. Although many students are not ecstatic about returning home after just having tasted the freedom of living alone in the dorms, I personally am thankful for this extra time with my family. As graduation comes closer within the next 2 years, I understand that life will become busier and busier, and for those reasons I see this time at home as time to connect with my family before going out into the real world after graduation. In addition, the convenient location of class on Zoom has significantly increased my amount of sleep (which is always hard to come by as college students)! But on the other hand of Zoom, I do have my own Zoom mishap story to tell. Like I said, while I have traded my old roommates for my trusty corgis, they unfortunately don’t understand the concept of “zoom meetings”. Because of this, they have interrupted quite a few of my meetings by demanding I play ball with them, and when not successful, have proceeded to howl, bark, and whine (which makes for a very odd experience for others viewing my screen, especially since my dogs are too small to be seen on screen).
Besides those positives of being online, there have been plenty of hardships, one of which being the inability to really be with my friends from UCLA. It can be quite lonely to be isolated at home, even with the company of 2 corgis, and it has made burnout something hard to avoid. Fortunately though, I am thankful for all the effort that the UCLA Russian department and Flagship have put into keeping us all connected and fighting this burnout! From their efforts, spirits have been kept relatively high, and I am more excited now than ever to return back to school when it is safe to do so. Ultimately, this year has been an unforgettable one, but in the end it has made me thankful for the efforts of all UCLA faculty to get us through this and back to school in no time.