With students coming from very different backgrounds and experiences, the start of a whole new semester can either be overwhelming, enticing or something entirely different. Given that we are in the third week of the spring semester, the student body, the Office of Student Affairs and the Office of Student Leadership and Involvement each voice their opinions about the first two weeks of school at MSU.

“My first week of school was tough because I came back to school on the second day of school and was only able to attend some of my classes on the first week but it has been pretty good so far and I like most of my professors. Although the first week of school was tough, I have to keep pushing through it because I am doing this for my mom and everyone in my family but most importantly myself.” Lucyan Saafi, music education freshman, said. “I would have loved to go out and interact with people but the academic course load and Homeworks have affected my chances to socialize.”

The start of a new semester can present itself with a lot of stress-inducing factors, which can be overwhelming for a lot of students, but handling this stress properly can also make the start of school an enjoyable experience. MSU provides different ways to deal with the stress of starting a new semester like tutoring and academic support programs offered at the Moffett Library or recreational sports and a fitness gym located at the Bruce and Graciela Redwine Student Wellness Center or with the many school-sponsored events hosted by the various MSU student-centered organizations.

“It’s my last semester till graduation so I’m taking all my upper-level biology classes and although they are the most stressful classes we have as biology majors, the Moffett library has provided a good place for me to study as well as Bolin which has given us a good place to learn effectively and apply what we know through labs and the professors have made it an enjoyable experience nonetheless,” Brett Mitchell, biology senior, said. “It has been a stressful but enjoyable experience.”

With students having different feelings towards the start of the spring semester, many various factors could be in direct correlation to the student body’s opinions. The Offices of Student Affairs and Student Leadership and Involvement have shared their thoughts on what these different factors could be.

“We had a decent amount of attendance at some events. Some events we thought we were gonna have more people weren’t as packed and I think we came back earlier than usual that’s one and I think another thing that might have affected this is the weather has been going up and down I feel like that’s number two and then the main thing I think that people might still be worried and are still careful about is COVID-19. So I think they are a lot of different variables that might affect student attendance,” Mario Ramirez, director of the Office of Student Leadership and Involvement, said.

“As far as what we noticed at the beginning of this semester, we noticed that students were coming back later than they typically would begin the spring. Now, this could be for a couple of reasons, it could be that we started school about a week earlier this spring than we typically do and the other one certainly could be because of COVID and watching what’s going on out there. And we also saw less participation in our activities than we typically do and we know students are here because retention points went up by 4% but this again could be in part to COVID but kind of broadly, the beginning of the spring did not have the energy that we typically see and participation in events that we typically see which is a direct result of the spread of COVID and it’s new variants and the anxiety around it.” Keith Lamb, vice president of student affairs, said.

The start of this semester has presented itself differently for students at MSU, whether it be in the form of a good experience, a bad experience or even a neutral experience. Regardless, it is an experience that we should undergo and learn from to prepare us for the real world.

“The start of the semester was a little overwhelming at first but after getting the first week by and getting into the second week, it feels a little more under control. Seeing all the homework and stuff I have to do for the week, at first felt overwhelming but it’s a really good program, the radiology program.” William Payne, radiology junior, said. “I believe that everything we have to go through really prepares us early for what we are going to face when we get out of here, so I think it is necessary that we go through it.”