Unlike many other higher education institutions, first-year University of Illinois College of Medicine Peoria students are starting off their year entirely remotely.
Michael Neff is one of those first-year medical students. With the COVID-19 pandemic still raging, he said it's an interesting time to get into medicine.
"It gives me kind of a heightened sense of the sense of moral charges that doctors face, I would say," he said.
Neff said medical students are held to a higher standard of adhering to the "new normal," even if that means not going to class or socializing as they usually would.
"We're faced during this pandemic, I guess, with a greater responsibility to act as role models," Neff said. "So in a certain sense, I think we will benefit in our clinical lives from the pandemic professionally. But it is a bit of a challenge."
Neff said UICOMP's transition to online learning is "going really well."
"The administration has made a pretty seamless transition to online that I think was beta-tested on the class before us. So we're reaping the benefits of that," he said.
Despite the lack of access to student laboratories this semester, Neff said he looks forward to hopefully getting on campus this winter.
Older students are engaging in hybrid learning, with both online and face-to-face components.
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