By Lauryn Longacre, Staff Writer
The Global Opportunities (GO) trip acts as a graduation requirement and a cross-cultural experience for SU students. Many look forward to being exposed to a new culture and learning other ways of life around the globe. However, for students of the Spring 2020 GO Long semester, plans have changed drastically.
Due to COVID-19, students on their GO Long trips were given an ultimatum of staying overseas indefinitely or returning home for quarantine.
In early March, GO students living abroad in Italy were brought back to the U.S. due to the rising cases and deaths of the coronavirus. By March 17, SU called for the students on the London GO trip to return home as well.
One student on the London GO trip, junior Steven Pomykalski, had been preparing for his trip since he was a freshman.
“I was really looking forward to exploring all that London had to offer including all the big city attractions,” Pomykalski said. “I was also looking forward to traveling … with my best friends who were all in the program with me.”
Pomykalski said that he thought everything would subside at first but began to feel the reality of it when cases began to escalate in Europe.
“There were really no precautions taken at first,” Pomykalski said. “They were just saying to stay home if you had symptoms and to take precautions to avoid large crowds. It wasn’t until we left that they shut down parks and social gatherings.”
Traveling back to America, the flight was unfilled, and the students were made to fill out paperwork for the CDC. Upon his return, Pomykalski was shocked to find how everything was closed.
“In London all the bars and restaurants were still open … it wasn’t until a couple days after we left that everything began shutting down there.”
For New Zealand GO student Makayla Peachey, the experience was vastly different.
According to Peachey, the same day the students arrived, New Zealand began taking action against the virus. There was a country-wide order limiting the number of customers allowed in restaurants and widening the spaces between tables. Peachey said that the restaurants had to check their passports and take their contact information in the event a case was confirmed in the area.
“I thought I was lucky that I was on an island in the middle of the Pacific,” Peachey said. “There were no cases, they have universal health care and the government said they cared about treating everyone.”
At the time of the students’ arrival, there had only been five cases in New Zealand—however, by the time the cases reached over 100, the students were told to either leave the country or stay until further notice.
“I knew I was putting myself in two locations that at least 100 confirmed covid-19 cases had gone through,” Peachey said about travelling home. Although New Zealand airports were taking serious actions against the pandemic, the U.S. airports were not, according to Peachey.
“Everything was open, it was like there wasn’t a pandemic.” Peachey described the U.S. airports as “gross,” revealing how they would only clean counters, wouldn’t wear gloves and left all stores open.
As far as classes go, Peachey will carry out her coursework online for the remainder of the semester and had noted that the 17-hour time difference might affect her. Pomykalski said his classes no longer meet, and the students will carry out their work at their own pace.
“This whole experience has been crazy… it feels like a weird dream,” Peachey said.