Editor’s note: “The new normal” is a continuing series that looks into how members of the Los Medanos College community are coping with a shelter-in-place order amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since starting this series, many Los Medanos College students have opened up about how they are handling the Coronavirus.  Lots of people, including Gavino Lopez, are still trying to adjust to the new way of life caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I miss going out with my friends to play soccer,” said Lopez. 

Lopez is a second year student at LMC where he’s currently taking Public Speaking, Fundamentals of Coaching and Beginning Soccer.

Like many of his peers, Lopez is also finding the transition to online learning to be different than what he thought at the beginning.

“At first, it was easy. It really didn’t faze me, but now that this quarantine has gone on for a while, it’s hard,” he said. “Transitioning from taking classes in person to taking them online was and is really hard.”

Because of the abrupt transition, Lopez had to drop his Intro to Anatomy class because the lab was too difficult to conduct online.

“The online process for school is rough. I had to drop out of some classes,” said Lopez. “The communication with the teacher and most teachers is horrible as well.”

As the community transitioned to remote and online classes, and got an inside look at the daily lives of LMC students, it can be seen that this new way of life is not adequate for quite a few students. As summer classes are moved to remote lecture only, some are left wondering when this will all end.