Preparing for college is one of the most daunting tasks a high school student can be faced with. To try and make certain important decisions about the next several years of your life is extremely stressful. But how does this change when we are still stuck in a global pandemic?

Already as most people know, the college admissions process was heavily affected by the pandemic. Everything from standardized testing to volunteering was skewed for the class of 2021. But now, most know where we are attending college, but the struggle is far from over.

I have already been accepted to the school to which I’m going, but the list of things I need to do still seems endless. Within hours of accepting my college, I had to start on my housing application. Next, picking a roommate. Due to COVID, I have only ever been to my college once, never even having seen the dorm-style I intend to live in. So picking my dorm-style was a bit of a stab in the dark for me.

Being an online learner has its pros and cons, but one of the cons is that I still haven’t got to meet a fair number of my classmates. So in total, I have a single friend attending my school with me, which while I know I will make new friends, is also slightly daunting in itself.

While searching for a roommate, I have often compared it to the process of online dating. Having to submit photos and a bio of you, messaging random people to see if you’re compatible, and then possibly trying to meet up with someone you only know from a handful of pictures and their screen name. With college having younger and younger students each year, the processes were changing anyway. Still, now with the pandemic, my grade is getting to experience many things for the first time different than how they were for everyone else.

And these are just the struggles I’ve experienced in the last two weeks or so. I know that things will only get stranger and crazier the closer to next semester we get.