During the most critical moment in modern history, we asked students questions about the experience of school during a pandemic. In these Student Stories, we provided an outlet for students to express their feelings about the most isolating and challenging parts of the past year. These stories demonstrate the incredible strength of returning to the classroom amid a new normal.


Making Student Stories gave us the opportunity to talk to so many incredible young adults across Nebraska. Read how 10 how students summed up their experience.

I think one word that would sum up COVID and last year altogether would be tiring because I know for me, and for a lot of us, we’re just, we’re over it at this point, we kind of wanted to end. It was a very long year. For me, it felt it was never going to end. Everything just happened at once and more things kept happening and it kept building up to a point where we just tired and there was a point where I felt I couldn’t breathe. And I think we all expected 2021 to be a breath of fresh air and I’m certainly hoping that happens.

“In one emotion, I would say very stressful. Very stressful. I feel like the stress of the unknown, especially with work.” Katelyn works as a Clinical Nursing Assistant, helping care for patients at a local hospital.  witnessed the uncertainty of COVID-19 symptoms and treatment; no two days and no two patients were quite the same. ​“I don’t know what I’m going to go into that day,” Katelyn said, ​“I don’t know where I’m going to be. I don’t know what type of patients I’m going to see, how well or not well they are.” 
All that uncertainty didn’t end at work for Katelyn, ​“Even with school, I have an unknown of am I going to go back? Are we going to get quarantined? Am I going to get quarantined because I was too close to another person who may have tested positive? And just the stress of not knowing if I’m going to be able to graduate on time or have graduation.”

“Titanic, both in the term describing the size of something and in the ship that sank in 1912. I think that the pandemic has had this large weight on yeah shoulders, and its impacts have had a large impact on my life.” For Ken, the moment the pandemic started to feel real, ​“felt almost like hitting an iceberg.”

“If I were to choose one word that would sum this up, it would be life-changing. And I know that sounds like an extreme word to use for this.” Whether it seems obvious, extreme, or overly optimistic, for Sadie Jereke – and for all of us – COVID-19 was simply life-changing. ​“I think that if COVID never would have happened, our lives would have been completely different,” Sadie said, ​“I can’t even imagine what my life would look like if I’d never gotten COVID.”

“I would say one word that can sum up my last year with COVID is hectic. Everything is hectic constantly,” Ella said. Between shifting rules and regulations, adjusting to the isolation of quarantined life, and watching the virus spread, ​“there’s always something changing…it’s all over the board constantly.”

The word Parker would choose to sum up his COVID experience, would be: ​“Probably persistence, because whenever something doesn’t work out with me, I try again and again and again.” Parker put that persistence to work throughout the pandemic, finding new approaches to school and extracurricular activities, and pushing through the mental health challenges along the way, ​“I know I’m not the best at a lot of things, but I try my best to do my best.”

The one word I’d probably describe COVID would be confusing, something new that no one ever expected to happen. Um, it wasn’t really, it was kind of like an unreal feeling you got, um, everyone was, didn’t know what to do. Everyone was confused mostly. And, uh, we kind of just had to see what happened and we kind of just went with the punches and we had to do what we had to do and live

“One word that would sum up COVID for me is life-changing and though that might seem super generic. It kind of is, but like the fact is that our lives are completely changed and probably are not ever going to go back to the way it was before, which I don’t know is entirely a bad thing because I guess we can look at it as a growing experience. The fact that we’re learning from this, how technology has evolved andlike bringing people together despite being apart. And so just looking on the bright side, our lives have changed, but I guess for the better.”

“The one word I would use to describe my experience with COVID is breathless. Not only is it a respiratory virus and so if you get it, you can’t breathe, but you also feel that strain in your chest, that stress and that worry.”

“If I had to describe COVID in one word…it was hell, it was so hard for me. I was struggling every day to try to pass those difficult classes, trying to survive, trying to get past it. The storm it’s like, I can’t do this anymore. I need help. I felt like I was being drowned to the bottom of the earth. It’s like, God, help me please, because I can’t take this anymore. I can’t take this.”

“The one word I would use to describe my experience with COVID is enlightening. You know, um, we were enlightened to the rest of the world, what they’re going through, and I was enlightened with what my neighbors were going through, or my peers at school were going through. Um, it was a very enlightening moment and I really hope people were enlightened and inspired by the COVID experience.”