Being an RA in 2020

This year has been very strange in terms of education. I go to an undergraduate college that is private, Christian, and liberal arts. We got sent back home with a day's notice in March of 2020. I remember there were rumors about it for a week or two before we got sent back. We got the email announcement while eating dinner in the dining hall and the energy was so crazy. People were excited, scared, and loud. We finished the semester online and it was a lot of hard work. I am an RA and we had to do half of our training online. When we met in person, we had to take our staff picture distanced and with masks. Moreover, when we got on campus that summer, we had lots of issues trying to get students to comply with mask and social distancing mandates. Overall, people have been very compliant and infection rates at my school were far lower than the country and state average. However, the week before our semester ended, everyone began getting sick. I was put in quarantine for two weeks because I was a close contact. This happened twice and both were coworkers. I did not have to stay in a hotel but others did. I delivered many meals to friends who were positive or close contacts. I watched Joe Biden's election speech on zoom with a friend while in quarantine. It has been hard to be an RA because sometimes, we (my coworkers and I) feel like we are 24/7 workers since we are in the building so much. This is because I have half of my classes online and most extracurriculars were canceled or online. When we were in the building, we were expected to confront policy no matter what time. There were so many COVID violations (especially in the first few weeks and the last few weeks of the semester before Thanksgiving). However, it is all worth it to keep everyone safe since our college never got shut down. I hope that we go back for our Spring semester - especially since my study abroad was already canceled.