• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Advertising
  • Join PGM
Pepperdine Graphic

Pepperdine Graphic

  • News
    • Good News
  • Sports
    • Hot Shots
  • Life & Arts
  • Perspectives
    • Advice Column
    • Waves Comic
  • GNews
    • Staff Spotlights
    • First and Foremost
    • Allgood Food
    • Pepp in Your Step
    • DunnCensored
    • Beyond the Statistics
  • Special Publications
    • 5 Years In
    • L.A. County Fires
    • Change in Sports
    • Solutions Journalism: Climate Anxiety
    • Common Threads
    • Art Edition
    • Peace Through Music
    • Climate Change
    • Everybody Has One
    • If It Bleeds
    • By the Numbers
    • LGBTQ+ Edition: We Are All Human
    • Where We Stand: One Year Later
    • In the Midst of Tragedy
  • Currents
    • Currents Spring 2025
    • Currents Fall 2024
    • Currents Spring 2024
    • Currents Winter 2024
    • Currents Spring 2023
    • Currents Fall 2022
    • Spring 2022: Moments
    • Fall 2021: Global Citizenship
    • Spring 2021: Beauty From Ashes
    • Fall 2020: Humans of Pepperdine
    • Spring 2020: Everyday Feminism
    • Fall 2019: Challenging Perceptions of Light & Dark
  • Podcasts
    • On the Other Hand
    • RE: Connect
    • Small Studio Sessions
    • SportsWaves
    • The Graph
    • The Melanated Muckraker
  • Print Editions
  • NewsWaves
  • Sponsored Content
  • Digital Deliveries
  • DPS Crime Logs

‘I Just Can’t Believe It’: Students in Shock and Frustration Over Sudden End of Semester

March 11, 2020 by Kayiu Wong & Austin Hall

Students gather on Main Campus after Pepperdine announces the university’s decision to transition to online classes and require students to leave campus.

Photos by Milan Loiacono

It’s been six weeks since Pepperdine suspended the Shanghai international program, the first in a succession of major decisions the university has made to prevent a community outbreak of coronavirus. Today, that saga reached its peak when the university announced all students must leave campus and finish classes online.

After less than a month of reacclimating on the Malibu campus, Shanghai participant Mason Chin is having to pack his bags once again.

“I just drove back out here from Iowa,” Chin said. “Now I have to drive back because I don’t really have any other choice.”

Sophomore Mason Chin speaks to the Graphic's Digital Editor Kayiu Wong and Staff Writer Austin Hall about his reactions to having to move out of the Malibu campus after only being back for less than a month.
Sophomore Mason Chin speaks to the Graphic’s Digital Editor Kayiu Wong and Staff Writer Austin Hall about having to move out of the Malibu campus less than a month after returning from Shanghai, China.

President Jim Gash sent the community-wide email at 8 a.m. Wednesday, stating that students must move out of their on-campus housing by Sunday, March 15, and that the university will begin remote online classes Monday, March 16.

Chin said he feels his class is equipped to handle the situation after last year’s Woolsey Fire and Borderline shooting, followed by the recent suspensions of all abroad programs with the exception of the Washington, D.C.

“I would say partially I’m numb to it at this point,” Chin said. “This is the fourth biggest thing that’s happened recently, so I’m sure the students will keep rolling with the punches.”

With seven weeks left in the spring term, students said the abrupt ending makes them feel like the rug was pulled out from under them.

“We’re all scrambling, trying to figure out what to do,” senior Luke Whartnaby said. “Because it’s, like, if you live across the country like I do and like a lot of students do, do you just go home and say goodbye to everyone?”

Whartnaby is one of thousands of students who have to pack up their on-campus residence this weekend. He filled out the university’s exemption form to petition to remain in his Seaside dorm to complete his senior thesis and have more time to figure out his plans.

#WATCH: We spoke to students on campus about their reactions to @pepperdine‘s decision to send students home for the rest of the semester.

Read more about students’ shock to this morning’s announcement in @kayiu_wong and @aust1nhall‘s story: https://t.co/Sv87X2ZbAn pic.twitter.com/TGNFLqxtn1

— Pepperdine Graphic (@PeppGraphic) March 12, 2020

For seniors who were hoping to have an eventful finish to their college career, the news hits especially hard.

“[It’s] my last two months, so it was a time I thought I would enjoy more, that I would see friends, that I would explore more of California,” senior Lorraine Nuñez said.

Nuñez is from Puerto Rico and says figuring out her travel plans while having to pack and finish schoolwork is taxing.

“I’m trying to stay calm, but it’s been tough,” Nuñez said.

She also applied to stay in her on-campus housing, since traveling to Puerto Rico is a difficult process. If she doesn’t get the exemption, Nunez said she would have to fly home.

“I have nowhere else to go,” Nunez said.

Students embrace one another after learning they must move out of their on-campus housing by Sunday, March 15.
Students embrace one another after learning they must move out of their on-campus housing by Sunday, March 15.

Senior Chase Manson said he is caught between feeling safe and having closure.

“I’m having mixed emotions, honestly,” Manson said. “On one hand, I get to go home and be with my family, and I think that’s a blessing. But on the other, I have to cut my time here pretty short with my friends. I think there will always be a part of the book that’s left unwritten.

Manson, a resident advisor in Drescher, was caught off guard by the email and said it put him and his Housing and Residence Life (HRL) colleagues in a frenzy.

“While I applaud the university for taking steps to protect our safety, I think that it came very abruptly,” Manson said. “I was in the middle of an HRL meeting, and it was just a mass pandemonium because no one knew — not even my boss. It kind of blindsided everyone, and I wish that there was a way to transition into this a little bit better.”

The sudden end of the semester is hard to take in for some after the back-to-back disruptions the Pepperdine community has faced.

“I just can’t believe it,” junior Aileen Blomdal said. “Year after year, there’s something going on campus, and it’s just kind of hard to process still.”

_______________________________________

Follow the Pepperdine Graphic on Twitter: @PeppGraphic

Contact Austin Hall and Kayiu Wong on Twitter: (@aust1nhall) (@kayiu_wong) or email: (austin.hall@pepperdine.edu) (kayiu.wong@pepperdine.edu)

Filed Under: COVID-19, Featured, News Tagged With: Aileen Blomdal, Austin Hall, Borderline Shooting, Chase Manson, coronavirus, international programs, Jim Gash, Kayiu Wong, Loraine Nunez, Luke Whartnaby, Mason Chin, online classes, pepperdine, Pepperdine community, Pepperdine University, suspension, Woolsey Fire

Primary Sidebar

Categories

  • Featured
  • News
  • Life & Arts
  • Perspectives
  • Sports
  • Podcasts
  • G News
  • COVID-19
  • Fall 2021: Global Citizenship
  • Everybody Has One
  • Newsletters

Footer

Pepperdine Graphic Media
Copyright © 2025 · Pepperdine Graphic

Contact Us

Advertising
(310) 506-4318
peppgraphicadvertising@gmail.com

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
(310) 506-4311
peppgraphicmedia@gmail.com
Student Publications
Pepperdine University
24255 Pacific Coast Hwy
Malibu, CA 90263
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube