Welcome to Free Press Free Write, a weekly column written by the staff of The New School Free Press. Each week a new staff member might share a story, memory, maybe a DIY, or a week-in-review. Free Write is a space where our reporters, artists and editors can express themselves through writing. In times like these, writing can be an escape.
Next up is our social editor, reporter, and photographer, Alexandra Nava-Baltimore, a first-year BA/BFA dual-degree student majoring in Photography at Parsons and completing a Self-Designed major at Lang.
Illustration by Elizabeth Garver
Dear Diary,
This is a year of many firsts, some good, some bad, and so many in between.
I graduated from high school in 2020, the year of the COVID- 19 pandemic. Graduation was a milestone in itself, now add a pandemic that continues as college begins. Classes are fully online, life is at a standstill, and my world feels like a spinning top. The norms that I thought I would face as a college freshman have changed. The present is setting the new normal, but the present is still unknown.
In December, I moved into my first apartment with my roommate Kayla, also a first-year student. Our friendship has strengthened since meeting in 2019 at Parsons Paris where we both studied Fashion Photography. The relationships with friends that I am able to safely spend time with have also become stronger.
Being from Brooklyn, Manhattan is not so far away. So although not the same changes as students moving across the world, my move was a drastic new experience. Living here on my own with Kayla is so new, exciting, and filled with incredible firsts. Moving day on December 30, with our parents helping us. Filling the apartment with furniture, boxes, tons of art supplies, our insane amounts of clothes, decorating, and more was amazing! Exploring New York together, going thrifting, getting into our routine of food shopping and doing laundry, cooking together every night, making our whole apartment into a photo studio and doing photoshoots, staying up till 3 a.m. doing homework, and more. We are similar in so many ways, through our work ethic, drive, passion, and even personality. This semester we have been working together, collaborating, and making awesome memories.
Creating my new world seems like a dream. I have changed as my independence and self-confidence continue to evolve. My determination, self-motivation, and work ethic serve me well as I rise to challenges and thrive when pushed past my limits. I have learned a lot about who I am by living on my own.
When someone asks me how I am doing or how school is I say, “I am great! Everything is wonderful.” While I do feel this, I also feel like there are things that are very difficult. Although this is a time of so much uncertainty and distance, I have been trying to work on expressing my true feelings, both positive and negative. I thought it would be the perfect place to do that in this piece. So now let’s discuss:
As a first-year student with college fully online, making friends over Zoom is nerve-racking and pretty difficult. What was once the idea of how one makes friends is no longer possible now that everything is online. Thankfully I have my roommate and close friends from outside of college. Meeting teachers and my classmates over Zoom and at a distance is especially difficult for me- someone who has always made close bonds with my professors. I am never the student that just does the work and leaves the class. I try to go above and beyond and put my everything into my work. I want my teachers to know me and it is very important for me to have a true experience in the course.
When Kayla and I talk about our “friends” in class, we both feel ambivalent because at times the friendship ends as soon as I leave the Zoom or close my computer. There are classmates we speak with in breakout rooms, and people we text or facetime outside of class, but we have never met most of these people in person. It seems odd for me to call them my friends.
We are supposed to be in person next year. While it is exciting after I have been doing online classes for the last year and a half it is also nerve-racking. I will walk into the New School buildings and face the reality of really making friends and meeting new people face-to-face. It feels like I might have forgotten how to do that, but I also feel excited about seeing those I have spoken with in my classes and meeting new people.
Currently, walking past The U.C. building seems strange as I am a student there but have yet to be on campus. I don’t feel like I “go there”, because “there” is a building that I have not made any college memories in yet. I have taken summer programs in both the New York and Paris campuses and gone on countless tours, but this is separate from my college experience. I know that it has been a difficult and challenging transition for all but from a first-year student this is all very new, and there are no rules for this period, as this year has been a first for all.
Love,
Alexandra