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LEAP of FAITH Hall features two-person suites that share adjoining bathrooms, but there is enough space to ensure that during this isolation period, only one student occupies any fourperson adjoining suite.]
Imagine moving – by yourself – halfway across the world to a place where no one speaks your native tongue – and being stuck there while the world endures a pandemic. That story is reality for Yulia Bychkovska.
Summer 2020
We introduced you to Bychkovska in the last issue of Affinity magazine. A junior majoring in international business, she hails from Zhytomyr, Ukraine, a city of roughly 300,000 people located about 90 minutes west of the capital, Kyiv.
Affinity
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Ukrainian officials closed the border in March just two days after Columbia College announced its closing, leaving Bychkovska unable to return home. The college made arrangements for Bychkovska to remain in her room in New Hall, where she quarantined along with a handful of other students. [New
“At first, it was a little overwhelming with the number of people asking how I was doing, and I didn’t know how I was doing,” she says. “But I haven’t felt alone. It’s great that we have so much technology that we can feel connected even when we aren’t physically connected.” Bychkovska is an active member of the student body. She was an RA in New Hall last year and in the fall, she will be an RA in Cougar Village. She is a student assistant for Center for Student Leadership, a student ambassador, president of the Honors Student Association and next year’s vice president of the Student Government Association. With the move from in-seat to interactive virtual classes came a new way to learn. While Bychkovska had the benefit of previously taking classes online, she received ample support from faculty and staff. “I was worried about not being able to focus, but I can see my professor
