Pitt students poured back to campus this week ahead of the fall semester. For the first time since fall 2020, Panthers are starting their year fully in-person with no online start, no online activities fair and no more capacity limits in study areas. Several students voiced their feelings about the beginning of the academic year. 

Lucca Spence, a junior psychology major, said he is happy for a return to pre-covid Pitt. 

“It feels amazing, to be honest, because I don’t particularly like online courses,” Spence said. “I like to be with people, I feel like a lot of people do, and I’m really excited about it. I actually just switched my major, so it’s going to be awesome to be with people in classes.” 

Some students did express some nostalgia for the past two years. Ava McGinnis, a sophomore economics major, said she will miss the convenience of online classes. 

“It feels a lot better, but at the same time it feels weird because I feel like it [was] very convenient to have the recorded stuff and the different meetings and stuff but now it’s all in person so I have to wait and see how that’s gonna be different [this semester],” McGinnis said.

Akila Sanjay, a junior economics and psychology major, said she will also miss the accessibility of online classes. 

 “I’ll miss how flexible they were, a lot of times my classes were asynchronous so I could do them whenever, and that was really nice,” Sanjay said. “Other than that, I really do prefer the in-person start and I’m excited to get started.”