For first-year student Kendric Effah-Gyan, the challenge of pursuing his education at Lehigh during a time of global pandemic started with one of the most fundamental of all: figuring out how to get to campus to simply begin his college experience.
Kendric was with his parents in Ghana when he received word of his arrive-on-campus plan, so his journey began first with a flight from Ghana to Georgia. There, he would complete quarantine while staying with his aunt, and then proceed to campus. That was the plan, at least. Unfortunately, during his stay, Georgia was declared a hotspot; as such, he was informed he would need to quarantine yet again upon his arrival at Lehigh.
“I had to book a flight the next day,” he says. “And because of the way I had to move, I had to do everything on the go. I had some trouble on the plane, as I had bought a bunch of hand sanitizers, but they threw it all out. … When I finally got here, I was in my room for two weeks and had to start classes online before moving to campus.”
Finally free to access campus after completing his second quarantine, Kendric then faced his next challenge.
“I had to adjust to being on campus, and interacting with people,” he says. “When I first came on campus, I didn't know as many people. … I had a few friends who also came from Ghana. So, that helped me make more friends and connect with people who they already knew. I also met some people earlier on in my college journey, so I tried to look for them as well. And thankfully I found a few of them, and now I think I have a few people who I can call friends.”
His first semester of college hasn’t been what he expected, but Kendric says he tries to keep everything in perspective, and to keep in mind, too, the health and safety of everyone he interacts with.
“Just simply wearing a mask can protect someone—maybe your friend, the others around you, because you never know who has the virus,” he says. “I mean, it's a very crazy period we're in. So, I mean, the best thing to do is to be safe.”