RW1: Journalism and Media

Quarantine Scenes: Where Hunter Students Are Tuning Into Their Online Classes

Students around the country have moved to online learning due to COVID-19, meaning their seat in the “classroom” may now be at a kitchen table, in the corner of a bedroom or cross-legged on the living room couch. Some are home alone, while others are sharing space with siblings, parents and grandparents — or children of their own. For an exercise on descriptive writing, students in instructor Susie Armitage's Hunter Reporting and Writing I class wrote up dispatches from their current study environments. 

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My cozy two-bedroom apartment is tucked away in the gritty, industrial section of Brooklyn called East New York. It’s a bright, sunny space nestled inside an enormous concrete maze of tall domino-like buildings.

Each morning begins with subtle rejoicing from chirping birds outside my window. They make it easier to start another reclusive day. The indefinite downtime has turned my master bedroom into a coven of canvases and beauty products with full daily schedules of artistic self-care. Working and schooling from home is an integral part of this new confinement routine: my queen-size bed doubles as a conference and drafting table for everything from craft projects to nail painting. 

Like the draped and leafy plants adorning my kitchen, Rocky, my five-pound golden chihuahua, seems happier to have me around each hour of the day. But it has been 12 days. 

— J. Kinna LeBlanc