The COVID-19 Freshman Experience
Research project seeking to understand the experiences of freshmen at Dartmouth College during COVID-19.
I designed and executed this 6-week research project to shed light on the experiences of freshmen at Dartmouth during the pandemic. I created the research design and conducted all interviews, transcriptions, qualitative coding, and synthesized findings.
Executive Summary
In conducting this research, I hoped to shed light on the experiences of freshmen at Dartmouth College transitioning to college under the social distancing restrictions laid out in the school's "COVID-19 Community Expectations."Remote learning is isolating, and research has demonstrated its negative effects on college students’ mental health. With little research into how isolation and restrictions are affecting college freshmen, this ethnographic research aims to amplify the voices of current freshmen and uncover the negative effects that transitioning to college under these restrictions has had on experiences of connection and community, inequity, class cohesion, and student mental health.
The COVID-19 restrictions prevented freshmen from finding connections and a sense of community, exacerbated existing inequities, and undermined class cohesion. These consequences curbed students’ successful transition to college and negatively affected students’ mental health, which in turn highlighted the inadequacy of existing support resources offered by Dartmouth.
I have shared my findings with college administrators, and I hope that my findings will inform their choices as they navigate decisions that will affect current and future classes as freshmen or at the very least, their understanding of the effects their decisions will have.
Time
6 Weeks
Team
1 Researcher
Role
UX Research
Deliverables
Final Report
KEY FINDINGS
Mental Health: Barriers to Access
Lack of knowledge about how to access mental health resources on campus and barriers to accessing them
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Current outreach/education around resources not enough – students don’t know how to access mental health resources
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Especially difficult to access in a time of crisis
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Having to make a phone call to access crisis resources and therapists increases inaccessibility
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Stigma around access to mental health resources
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Concerns about the services offered by Dartmouth
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Can’t relate to counselors/Identity doesn’t match, espeically for low-income, POC students
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Concerns about counseling cost
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The reputation that they won’t be helpful
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Searching for resources outside of Dartmouth
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Dissatisfied by Dartmouth resources, students report finding therapists outside of Dartmouth
Seeking Connection and
Community Under Dartmouth COVID-19 Restrictions
Social distancing rules make socializing challenging
- No gatherings, fewer in-person socialization opportunities compared to peer institutions
- Socially distanced dining hall drives students people to eat and socialize off-campus
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Challenges with Zoom and Zoom fatigue
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Classes, Clubs, and First-Year orientation are usually ways to meet others but doesn’t translate and is largely ineffective over Zoom
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The emergence of New Social Spaces where social distancing rules aren't enforced
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Outdoor spaces (Walks, Occom Pond, Golf Course)
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Library Café
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Off-campus restaurants and houses
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Dartmouth experience lacks the community aspect that they came for
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“One of the reasons I applied was like community, traditions, things like that. And having the school without that feels kind of bare. Like it just feels like it's not the full experience whatsoever”
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Class Division:
Snitches vs. Everyone Else
LiveSafe App and Culture of “Snitching”
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“GroupMe Kid” definition: “someone who's just extremely active on GroupMe, someone who adheres to the school's policies, and will I guess snitch on other people who don't.”
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Students recognize the names of these "GroupMe kids/snitches" and steer clear
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Conflicting opinions on the restrictions and snitching breeds distrust and division within the 2024 class
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Added stress of gauging how prospective friends feel about rules
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Guarded around people they don’t know as well
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Changing how students engage with social media
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Rise of private stories on Snapchat
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COVID-19 as the "Equity Amplifier"on the Dartmouth Campus
Seeking off-campus social spaces to make friends (spending money)
- Restrictions drove people off-campus to restaurants as alternatives to socially-distanced Foco
- Paying to eat out is not financially available to everyone
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Exacerbates existing divide at Dartmouth
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Different circumstances at home
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Especially for FGLI students, responsibilities at home such as caretaking place a burden on students that it is not an equal experience
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Feeling unsafe at home for various reasons means that the risk of being sent home for breaking rules has much higher consequences for some students than others
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Background
For the 2020-2021 academic year, Dartmouth College allowed a select group of students to live on-campus, but under strict rules and regulations so as to protect the surrounding community. Due to social distancing, the campus would not welcome all students to campus at once, so students were distributed across the four residential terms based upon their class year. Freshmen received preference for on-campus housing for the fall and spring terms but were expected to live elsewhere for the winter term.
As the beginning of the fall term approached, all students planning to live on campus were required to complete a mandatory “Community Expectations” form, confirming their commitment to the rules outlined in the College’s plan to return to campus.
Access to campus required that students complete a mandatory 14-day quarantine, comply with weekly PCR surveillance testing, and follow the Dartmouth College undergraduate travel policy, which prior to the vaccine rollout, prohibited them from leaving the area surrounding campus.
Additional rules included, but were not limited to, requirements that students:
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“Physically distance, maintaining at least a 6-foot separation between myself and others in all Dartmouth facilities at all times, where possible;
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Wear face coverings inside all Dartmouth facilities, including but not limited to classrooms, workplaces, laboratories, dining facilities (unless eating), and residential halls (except when I am alone in my assigned room) and outside on Dartmouth grounds when I am unable to maintain physical distancing;
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Agree not to host or attend in-person gatherings of more than 9 people in any location, on-campus or in the community, including my off-campus residence, unless the gathering has been approved by Dartmouth;
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Use available campus resources, including residential life staff, student affairs staff, Report a Concern, and Live Safe if I see concerning behavior that I want to report or to ask questions” (Dartmouth Community Expectations Form).
The intention behind these restrictions is clear – in the words of Dean Lively as she introduced these risk reduction expectations, “President Hanlon and Provost Helble have underscored repeatedly that the health and safety of our students, faculty, staff and the Upper Valley are our highest priority” (Kathryn Lively 2020). However, in prioritizing public health, there was less consideration given to the many ways that these Community Expectations would affect students.
A crucial aspect of these effects is the consequences for students who fail to comply. In this same email, Dean Lively firmly stated, “If any of you do engage in behavior that poses a threat to the community, we want to be sure you understand that you may be required to leave within 24 hours and you will lose the privilege of campus enrollment for the remainder of the academic year” (Lively 2020). Dartmouth College administrators reported that in the fall of 2020, 86 students were required to leave campus for violating COVID-19 rules, in addition to 124 who received warnings and 397 reports that resulted in no disciplinary action (Sasser 2020). As a result of these restrictions, the reality of the freshman experience for many students was constantly weighing the risk of being sent home with opportunities for connection.
Process
To gather data on the freshman experience, I began by conducting outreach through purposive and snowball sampling. I leveraged personal networks, reached out to first-year student organizations such as FYSEP, Foundations in Social impact and Dickey Center Global Issue Scholars, and shared a poster with a scan code to recruit participants. The only requirements were that students be freshmen at Dartmouth (Class of 2024).
Through this, I recruited 7 undergraduate students to participate in a focus group and semistructured one-on-one interviews and interview the Director of the First-Year Student Enrichment Program. This sample group was racially and socioeconomically diverse, but did not include the perspective of international students.
My outreach generated undergraduate students willing to participate in focus groups and semi-structured interviews, and I continued to conduct outreach for new participants throughout the interviewing process.
All interviews and the focus group were recorded, transcribed, and I reviewed the transcriptions, conducting qualitative and thematic analysis.
Methods
Beginning with the focus group allowed for themes of the collective experience to emerge and lay the foundation for areas to probe in subsequent semi-structured interviews. The interview with FYSEP Director Jay Davis lasted thirty minutes and provided context for situating the experiences of first-generation students during COVID-19 within the challenges of transitioning to college experienced in previous years.
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Questions and themes that emerged in the focus group and earlier interviews informed adaptations to the interview guide used in later interviews. With additional data, interview guides were continuously revised, and individualized interview guides were created for follow-up interviews based upon points of interest that emerged in the focus group. With participant permission, I recorded all conversations, which generated nine transcripts. Following transcription, evaluation of the ethnographic data was guided by Braun and Clarke’s thematic analysis approach (2006), which involves the processes of qualitative coding, data reduction, and construction of themes (Carpenter-Song 2021). Transcripts were marked and qualitatively coded, and common themes emerged and were fleshed out through the process of memoing and continuous revision of transcripts.
​​Reflect: Takeaways & Next Steps
This research intends to amplify the voices and experiences of some of the students most acutely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and address the gaping hole in student perspectives when informing the decisions Dartmouth has made in their return to campus plan. It is well-established that COVID-19 has amplified inequity across the nation, but this rings especially true in the microcosm of an elite college campus. Transition to college is a long-awaited and important rite of passage in the lives of Dartmouth freshmen, but it is one that has not been fully realized under the circumstances of the past year. The rules and restrictions outlined in the Dartmouth Community Expectations deprived the Class of 2024 of crucial aspects of the “freshman experience” by hindering efforts to form connections with other students, highlighting existing inequities, and creating class division. These circumstances left students trapped in the liminal phase and negatively affected their transition to college, resulting in increased need for mental health resources and drawing attention to the inadequacy of Dartmouth support resources.
It is my hope that this research will encourage administrators to reflect on the effects stringent restrictions have had and will continue to have on freshmen’s ability to transition to college. As members of the Class of 2024 enter their sophomore year, it is important to understand the impact that entering college under these circumstances has had on them. Many students do not yet feel integrated into the Dartmouth community, as they have been deprived of opportunities to connect with upperclassmen and their peers. This sentiment is intensified for students of FGLI backgrounds, who in many ways have encountered even more challenges in their attempts to salvage aspects of the Dartmouth freshman experience. Students have missed out on important traditions that serve as rituals in the rite of passage that is a student’s transition to college. And finally, the sense of community that Dartmouth prides itself on has been dismantled by class division. All of this has had devastating effects on students’ mental health, and Dartmouth support services have proved insufficient. Moving into this next calendar year, I would urge administrators to focus on attempts to reconcile the lived experiences of the Class of 2024 with the freshman experience that they so desired, and to focus on bolstering resources available to students and embarking upon a journey of healing the division in the hopes of establishing community for these students. Despite the challenges and hardships students have endured, they still hold out strong with hope to someday experience the Dartmouth that they dreamed of. In the closing words of one participant, “I have to keep reminding myself that this isn’t actual Dartmouth and we haven't experienced it and we don't actually know what it is… I don't have a point of comparison for this, but I know it's like infinitely better. And so I just keep reminding myself of like this kind of sucks, but it'll get better” (CA).