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.

As the county-wide shelter-in-place order continues, students at Los Medanos College look forward to the end of their fully online semester.

Student Sanjana Sala, who is currently majoring in zoology, cannot wait to complete the last of her finals and take a break from remote learning. The spring semester ends Friday, May 22 and it couldn’t come any sooner for Sala.

For her major, Sala enrolled in both Statistics and Biology this semester in an effort to get some of her general education courses out of the way. Sala found the transition to online courses mid-semester both easy and challenging depending on each course.

“It was easier for [Statistics] for sure. But, for science classes, I think [the transition online] made it harder to learn. I’m struggling with my biology class because there’s a lot of information that I’d probably better grasp if in person,” said Sala.

Despite the challenge of learning online, Sala has found herself with more free time than usual recently. 

“I’ve been just trying to keep myself entertained, doing a lot of sleeping and watching Netflix; which I feel like everybody else is doing,” said Sala.

Other than sleeping, watching Netflix, or doing her school work, Sala has also been looking for a job to keep herself busy and pay rent during the COVID-19 pandemic but is having trouble because “a lot of stores have been shut down,” she said.

Sala recently completed training to work at a sandwich shop, and is still looking for ways to fill in more of her time during this shelter-in-place.