Humans of Kappa Delta since COVID-19

 Part 1: Cara

“Joining Kappa Delta has been one of the best experiences of my life, but I don’t think I have gotten the best experience out of it because of COVID-19. Things moved online very early on and events just aren’t thrilling to attend. I joined Kappa Delta in Spring of 2020, which was just a couple weeks before we got sent home. We had a couple sister-hood bonding events and, which included laser tag and ice cream. I was having a good time and enjoying sorority life before COVID hit. One sad thing was we had our big little reveal the night before all first initially went home. My big and I spent a few hours together, but we didn’t see each other in-person again until late august of 2020.

 Once we went home, I think Kappa Delta did its best to make fun online events. We had a formal, themed call nights and game nights all over zoom. Zoom was still fresh and so was the distance so there was always a handful of sisters that wanted to go to these events. Once the semester was over there was little connect with sisters at all. My big was one of the only sisters I kept in contact with besides my roommate Kim. The few weeks we had together wasn’t enough time to bond our pledge class for long distance 
FaceTime calls. It didn’t really bother me that this happened I knew this time was tough on everyone, and I was going back to work in a few weeks at that point, so I didn’t really care.”

“After we all returned to campus in the fall, I expected things to change a little bit, but they really didn’t. I don’t live in the sorority house so we have tight restrictions on when we can go to the house. Lots of sisters are scattered across campus, which divvied us because of our COVID-19 bubbles we are supposed to stay in. I do enjoy being able to attend some zoom sisterhood events, but zoom doesn’t allow everyone to participate. It’s very hard to get a conversation in when there are 10 girls in a breakout room. There of course is still a pressure to keep up our social media profiles which has been hard of hard to do since COVID. For Bid Day in the fall, I took pictures in front of car headlights outside my dorm. It’s been hard to come up with COVID safe Instagram posts, following the social media guidelines. 

“I am looking forward to being able to make more friends in the chapter. Not being to hangout or see other besides zoom even when you’re on the same campus in getting old. This upcoming fall semester should be a little more normal since the vaccines have come out, and I am looking forward to being able to bond as a group. I am ready for in-person things to start happening again so I can have my college experience back.”

Part 2: Kristen

            

            “I joined Kappa Delta Spring 2019, so I have an idea of what “normal” sorority events look like. Looking back at the things we were able to then, and the restrictions we have now, it feels like a fever dream that we were ever able to do it,” said Kristen. 

Kristen, a sophomore at UNH feels very disconnect with her sorority since COVID-19 struct the campus. “I had other issues going on, so I wasn’t in school Spring 2020 when things first fell apart, but I came back fall of 2020, and lived in the sorority house so I really got the full experience. It was really weird living in the house just because when we first got back to school, we had all these restriction on when out-of-house sister could visit and where or when we had to have a mask on in our own house.”

            “It was still nice when we got back to campus, which meant people were still attempting to party even though we weren’t supposed to do. There were obviously girls that got exposed from partying, or just they’re exposed from other people being stupid and partying, which sent the entire house into quarantine for two weeks. And this happened multiple times. My whole life goes on halt because we have to lock down for two weeks at a time. I felt very controlled and became anxious because I was missing in-person classes and work.”

            “There were other issues going on in. the house which ended up in me moving out. It didn’t have anything to do with the COVID-19 issues or protocols in place. Now that I don’t live in the house, I don’t feel very connected to sorority life.  All of our events are still over zoom, which has just gotten boring and lost my interest. Out of house sisters are afraid to spend what little time we are allowed to spe
nd in the house because it has gone into quarantine too many times. We are paying for the amenities of the house but are barely able to access them which isn’t not fair to all out of house sisters. Our connection to why we all joined Kappa Delta is fading behind computer screens and I don’t think it’s fair to anyone.”

            “Don’t get me wrong I love my sister and FSL on campus, but this virus makes things very unapproachable. While wanting to spend time with my sisters, zoom is a horrible way to bond, and I am sick of starring at a computer screen! I am looking forward to being able to access the house and attend in person socials and sisterhood events.”