With the Eastern’s University Professionals of Illinois, EIU-UPI,  strike currently being suspended, teachers are allowed back in the classrooms to carry on with their curriculum. 

When it comes to the student responses, there are some mixed feelings in the air. 

Senior year TV and video production major Bailey Annan said that coming back to classes has been difficult for her, and now that finals are approaching, she feels not only extremely tired, but extremely stressed out as well. 

“I already have enough on my plate that I really can’t handle any more,” Annan said. “So like being able to, like having time to sleep in and, like not having to go to class gives me like the entire afternoon to spend in the library doing work. And I just can’t do that right now. So I’m just tired.” 

As for sophomore mass communication major Corbin Cox, he feels as if the students got denied some of their education because of the strike and coming back to classes after nearly two weeks off has really thrown him off his game. 

“Just having a random week off where it was like, ‘Oh, we might keep going or we might not, we’re not going to tell you’, is really easy to just mentally check out and be like, I’m done,” Cox said. “Yeah, no more semester.”

Considering that not all of his professors are on the same page makes it that much more difficult for him to adjust for classes in these last few weeks. 

“Some of my professors are revising the schedule, but a lot of them are just like, I’m going to teach what I can and will try to keep on the same path which is kind of annoying and very stressful,” Cox said.  

Spanish major Katie Beals said even though she is a senior, she is extremely happy to be back in classes. She said that her professors were super helpful and professional in preparation for the strike, which she felt helped make matters a little bit easier. 

“They all said, you know, ‘Here’s our plan, here’s what we’re going to do during it like they were very professional about it….’You know, I didn’t like not being able to go to school, but I understood why [the strike happened,]” Beals said. 

That being said, Beals does admit to having a bad case of senioritis, and the strike did not exactly help her motivation in a positive manner. 

“And I’ve talked to a lot of people and they feel the exact same way,” Beals said. “Like, I feel like this semester ought to be over because I had that break, you know, right before it ends. So it’s like, hard for me to get anything done.”

For junior elementary education major Joshua Doty, he said that he was pretty nervous in anticipation to go back to classes today, but luckily for him, his professors were extremely lenient in changing up the coursework to adjust for the new allotted school schedule. 

“They kind of took off some assignments since we missed a whole week,” Doty said. “And they gave us a bunch of opportunities for reviewing and stuff for finals because the finals are in like three weeks now. So like, at the end of today, like I’m like, I feel pretty good.” 

Adriana Hernandez-Santana can be reached at 581-2812 or at aihernandez@eiu.edu.