Oberlin Alumni Magazine Fall/Winter 2020

Keeping It Together A student’s life in any year is full of ups and downs, moments of exhaustion and stress mixed with moments of excitement and elation. Of course, 2020 wasn’t just any year.

The very phrase “in this unprecedented year” quickly became a cliché and then a punchline, but the COVID-19 pandemic took a toll. The essentials of campus life— curiosity, honest inquiry, academic rigor, a well-argued point countered by an equally well-argued point—all happened, but many important extras—the concerts at the ’Sco, the team and club sports, operas at Hall and movies at the Apollo—did not.

But Oberlin students masked up, stayed safe, and kept others safe. They created music and theater and art, ran experiments in labs, learned scores and theories, trained and conditioned for challenges ahead, fell in and out of love, made lifelong friends, found moments of joy. No matter how far apart they had to stand, they always stood together, and that’s what got—and will continue to get—Oberlin through. What they did in this unprecedented year actually has a precedent: It’s what Oberlin students always do.

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