Conceived during the abrupt move from in-person classrooms to virtual ones due to the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, Columbia College Chicago faculty incorporated student thoughts about being in quarantine, staying indoors with shelter-in-place orders issued by states, and the social justice and police reform movements.

Realizing the unique perspective each student had to reflect and comment on the pandemic, faculty encouraged students to focus on projects designed to capture the experiences of college students during this time.

The projects reflect work from the Oral History: The Art of the Interview, Public History: Presenting and Interpreting the Past, History of Photography 1 and Art, Design & Change: Engaging Community through the Arts & Design classes, these student works offer insight into the pandemic experience from the college student perspective.

Online is a project created by an Audio Arts & Acoustics class, Listening to the City, where students recorded sounds in the cities where they sheltered during the pandemic during the spring semester 2020. Also see the student magazine, Echo: The Life Issue, 2020, for additional insights into undergraduate student perspectives about their pandemic experience.