What has brought you the most joy OR been your biggest challenge during the pandemic?
In this time of great distance and change, both physical and emotional, the experience of loss in one form or another seems woven into each of our unique experiences. However, those who have endured times of great hardship before us often seem to recall the bright moments that made life worth living despite it all.
One thing we, as college students, have lost is the proximity of our fellow New Schoolers. It seems fair to say that The New School in particular offers its students refuge, a community of wildly unique yet similarly “weird” individuals. We at The New School Free Press were inspired by the online communities built by the likes of Humans of New York, Tiny Love Stories and CoronaVirus Confessions. Perhaps we can dig even deeper into how our unique experiences inform who we are, what we value and why we all ended up at The New School by exploring what has defined our COVID experiences.
Send in your submissions to New School Diaries here.
Content Warning: This series may, at times, discusses depression and suicide. If you or a loved one struggle with this, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
Other resources include:
- NYC Well – text “WELL” to 65173, call 1-888-NYC-WELL (692-9355) or use this chat feature to ask for help.
- NAMI (Nation Alliance on Mental Illness) helpline – 1-800-950-NAMI or in a crisis, text “NAMI” to 741741.
- And the SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) National Helpline – 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
Jakob Reed Stolzenfels
Theater Major, Lang
Third-year
Currently in Los Angeles
My biggest achievement during COVID was helping my family move into their new home. For almost two years, my family of five had been living in a small, two bedroom apartment as we were looking for a house that would suit our needs. My family loves one another, but I could see the stress that the situation caused my parents. Once they found their perfect house, I was very thankful for the opportunity to help them pack up their entire lives and move everything in – which included our horses, ducks, and dogs. In any other situation, I would have missed this enormous move because of my studies in New York. It made me happy to feel like I contributed to something that made my family feel so good.
Illustration by Rebecca Mesonjnik