John Jay has joined hundreds of colleges across the country to fully be online for the fall semester.

The fall semester begins tomorrow, August 26th, 2020. 

On Monday, August 3, the Registrar’s Office emailed the JJAY Community on how classes would be administered due to the rapid changes of COVID-19. 

Most classes will adopt an asynchronous, synchronous, or mixed synchronous teaching method, with the exception of a small number of science labs being held-in person or in a hybrid format on campus.

The decision to be fully online comes after much speculation due to the vast number of students attending CUNY schools with the majority being commuter students.

Although the decision seems to be the most pragmatic, it is a bittersweet and a difficult transition for both faculty and students.

Jeevika Sidhu, a senior majoring in Law & Society, expects to graduate this fall and believes that her senior year has been cut short. 

“I am upset because I don’t get to experience my last semester at John Jay. I am working on an independent study, and although it may seem convenient to work on it from home, I wanted to have the experience of talking to my peers and physically giving surveys for my research,” Sidhu said. 

Junior, Oluwaseun Ogunwwle, majoring in Fraud Examination and Financial Forensics has ambiguous feelings on the semester being online.

She is happy that she does not need to spend money buying passes for the LIRR or MTA but she is disappointed “because the building gives away a certain energy. Seeing other students who also have to work encourages me to do my work”.

Many John Jay students will miss the lively interactions in Hound Square and the engagement during community hour. For some students, being on campus is when they are able to be most productive. 

The Sentinel reached out to the President of the Black Student Union, DeCarlos Hines, to see his perspective as a student and club executive. 

Hines recently got accepted into John Jay’s renowned BA/ MA Forensic Psychology Program. 

As a student, Hines does not believe that there is much to look forward to when it comes to the semester being online. As a BA/MA student, Hines “is quite nervous about the idea of taking psychology classes online. I am the type of student who likes to engage in class discussions.”

For the upcoming semester, BSU has a series of events that are planned to take place on a weekly basis. Hines wants to make sure that the events are “engaging, entertaining and informative”.

Throughout the interview, Hines mentioned that he is flexible and although the situation is not ideal, he and many other students are learning to become comfortable with the current circumstances.