紐時賞析／美國大學生活因疫情縮水 失去很多收獲卻也意外不少

In a Dark Year on Campus, Some Surprising Glimmers of Light

大學生活因疫情縮水 有得有失

It was the year of college without the college experience.

這是大學生未能充分體驗大學生活的一年。

No packed stadiums and arenas. No intimate, small-group seminars or serendipitous encounters with strangers. No (or fewer) ill-advised nights of beer pong and partying.

沒有擠滿人的體育場館、私人小型團體研討會或是跟陌生人邂逅。愚蠢的投杯球之夜與派對也消失或是較少了。

It is not likely, if given the choice, that many college students would opt for the past year of distance, separation and perpetual wariness. Still, perhaps surprisingly, for many students, there was much that was gained as well as much that was lost in their unwanted suspension of campus life during the pandemic.

若能選擇，許多大學生不太可能選擇由社交距離、分離與永久性警戒構成的過去這一年。然而對許多學生來說，也許令人驚訝的是，疫情期間校園生活被迫叫停，失去很多，收獲卻也不少。

Madison Alvarado, who graduated from Duke last month, could no longer enjoy the camaraderie of painting herself blue and the giddy tumult of Duke basketball, which to her was as much about community as sport. As companies stopped hiring last summer, she snagged a summer internship only at the last minute and was still job-hunting this year.

上個月從杜克大學畢業的麥迪森·艾瓦多再也無法享受那種把自己塗成藍色的戰友情誼，以及杜克大學籃球隊令人嗨翻天的騷動，對她來說這不只是一種運動，也是一種社群活動。

But she is grateful for an invaluable lesson in dealing with how unpredictable life can be.

由於去年夏天企業停止了聘僱，她到最後一刻才獲得一個暑期實習機會，今年仍在找工作。

“I was the person with a plan,” she said. “A lot of people are following a preset track — premed, financial analyst, Ph.D. The pandemic put that in stop mode. It’s made me realize that not knowing the next step doesn’t mean my world is going to crumble. I think it made me less scared to face the unknown.”

她說，「我是個有計畫的人，很多人都在遵循一個預先設定的方向，像是醫科類預備課程、金融分析師、博士學位。疫情讓它進入了停止模式。這讓我了解到，不知道下一步並不代表我的世界就要崩潰了。我想這讓我不再那麼害怕面對未知。」

At the end of this most unusual of academic years, students interviewed at colleges around the country said they would not miss the regimen of virus testing and quarantining, the classes on Zoom, the zero tolerance for straying from prescribed rules, the distance they felt from one another.

在這個最不尋常的學年結束時，全國各地大學學生在受訪時表示，他們不會懷念病毒檢測和隔離規範、Zoom上的課程、對違反規定零容忍，以及他們彼此之間感覺到的距離。

“It’s just been a lot of grieving almost — grieving what we could have had,” said Raina Lee, a freshman at the University of North Carolina, who started the year in a dormitory but almost immediately had to move to an apartment off campus because of a COVID outbreak. “My life physically became a lot smaller, just this apartment.”

北卡羅來納州大學一名新生蕾娜，李說：「簡直令人悲痛，對我們本可擁有的感到悲傷。我的生活圈變小很多，只有這間公寓。」她一開始住在宿舍，但因為新冠肺炎疾病爆發，她幾乎隨即不得不搬到校外公寓去住。

But for many it has also been a time of self-discovery. Some applied themselves to academics in a way they never would have if offered the familiar buffet of campus amusements. Some bonded with a tight group of friends. Many, like Alvarado, found that for the first time in their lives, they had been liberated from their carefully planned lives and their focus on getting the approval of others.

但對許多人來說，這也是一個自我探索的時期。有些人將自己投入到學業上，要是為他們提供了熟悉的各式各樣校園娛樂活動，他們絕無可能這樣用功。有些人跟一群親密的朋友建立了深厚的情誼。許多像艾瓦多一樣的人發現，這是他們人生中第一次從仔細規劃的生活中解放出來，不再專注於獲得他人認可。

文／Anemona Hartocollis 陳韋廷／譯、樂慧生／核稿