How COVID Has Exacerbated the College Bathroom Experience
Public bathrooms have notoriously always been a risky situation. Whether it’s the invisible germs that are on almost every surface or the non-hand washers (you know who you are), bathrooms have always been a hotspot for viruses. Although, we’d have to say that college dorm bathrooms take the lead for the grossest bathrooms on earth.
If you’ve never been inside a hall-style bathroom, well, first of all, lucky you. Second, if you consider yourself a private person, beware—these bathrooms are the epitome of anti-privacy. Toilets, sinks and showers separated with sparingly placed walls and to be shared by 30 or more other students. Now, add a pandemic with a virus that spreads like wildfire, plus dorm hall bathrooms... It’s a literal disaster waiting to happen.
At Elon University, their solution to this potential bathroom nightmare is to assign sinks, stalls, and showers for each person to use. These guidelines were set in place at the beginning of September, and students are now learning to adapt to these new regulations.
Students at Elon are learning how to navigate hall-style bathrooms during Coronavirus. Photo from Pixabay.com.
According to Elon freshman Jane, “Each stall is numbered one through four, and everyone is assigned a number to use.” Jane adds how these new rules have made using the bathroom difficult to navigate at times, as she shares the space with over 20 girls.
In response to asking if these new rules make her feel safer in terms of slowing the spread, she tells us, “Honestly, the new rules don’t make me feel safer.” Jane acknowledges Elon’s good intentions. However, “At the end of the day, we all live together, so while these new rules were placed with good intentions, I don’t know if they will actually work.”
Although Elon has implemented many plans and guidelines around campus to slow the spread of the virus, these bathroom regulations seem to have people questioning whether or not it will truly make any kind of difference.
“I think it was smart as an idea, but it isn’t the most practical system,” another student Sarah comments. “I don’t really feel safer, but it’s nice to see the school making some effort to contain the virus.”
It will be interesting to see if these bathroom regulations will actually end up keeping students safer, and how the school will be reinforcing these new rules, if at all.
According to Katie, another freshman at Elon, a lot of problems arise when students don’t adhere to the rules, and visitors use the hall bathrooms. “I don’t feel safer because no one is really following the rules, and there are still people from other dorms using our bathrooms when they’re over,” she tells us. When asked about her opinion on the new bathroom rules, she says, “I feel like the system is not very helpful. We are all in the same space anyway, it doesn’t really make sense.”