Leo John Arnett didn’t expect to spend his junior year at Georgetown University living in Virginia. 

But when the COVID-19 pandemic swept through the city last March, Georgetown asked most students to move off-campus. In August, Arnett, a New Orleans native who didn’t want to remain in Louisiana during the fall semester, moved into a four-person apartment in Rosslyn. 

“In the fall, my housemates and I knew very few people who lived in Rosslyn, and so last semester felt a lot more disconnected,” Arnett says. But over time, he says, more and more Georgetown students began trickling into the relatively affordable D.C. suburb, and now he knows droves of students who live there too.

College students’ social lives are typically bound, at least a little, by the neighborhoods around their campuses. Between classes and on weekends, streets in Tenleytown, Foggy Bottom, Georgetown, and Shaw are usually teeming with students enjoying parks, getting a quick workout in, or grabbing dinner with their friends. 

The COVID-19 pandemic flipped that equation on its head when, last March, Mayor Muriel Bowser implemented a stay-at-home order, and college campuses across the city — and country — began closing their doors, limiting on-campus housing to those with specific needs. 

Like Arnett, students had to make a decision: move back home, or find housing on their own. And even as COVID-19 cases persisted throughout the summer and fall, an increasing chunk of students decided to trek back to D.C., motivated by reduced rent prices, friends in the area, and the hope of salvaging their college social experience. 

“Georgetown’s identity this year was less about the brick-and-mortar university, and way more about our shared connection. For those living in D.C., we all decided it was worth going out on a limb and getting a house or apartment with people you may not be close with. Everyone took this leap of faith because we wanted to be part of this community,” Arnett says.

While some returning students already had leases near campus, others did last-minute searches — and could now look past expensive college neighborhoods. Anjini Mathur, a senior at George Washington University, notes that while many students are still in Foggy Bottom, others are using the flexibility of virtual classes to start their college lives in new areas. Especially in the spring, “GW students have moved to Adams Morgan, downtown like me, or even out to NoVa, and are exploring other parts of D.C. that would be too far in a normal semester,” Mathur says. 

Austin Bassard, a junior at American University, adds that he saw many classmates leave the Tenleytown area and move to Friendship Heights, Bethesda, Rockville, and even Virginia.

Although the outdoor part of D.C. campuses remained open for the community, most indoor common spaces were restricted to the students who were granted on-campus access, with criteria for access varying by college and semester but including academic and financial need, athletics, and class year.

Without the amenities of campus to study and relax, many students went past familiar territory and became acquainted with new parts of the city. Instead of using AU’s common spaces, Bassard and his friends hung out and studied at the National Cathedral, and he even began taking the 40-minute walk to cafes in Dupont and Adams Morgan.

Some universities tried to meet students where they were off-campus. Georgetown granted all students global WeWork access for the spring, which had an added social benefit for D.C. students, as WeWorks became the “place where we can be productive together and see people we haven’t in over a year,” Arnett says. As a result, students have frequented the WeWorks in Rosslyn, Dupont, and even as far as Navy Yard, while exploring the nearby neighborhoods and dining scenes. 

In search of Wi-Fi, outlets, and nutrition, other students like Bassard flocked to coffee shops to safely study and socialize when D.C. restrictions allowed for a 25% indoor capacity. Shelly Holtmann-Schnur, the store leader at Philz Coffee in Dupont, notes that while Philz usually attracts a student crowd, she has seen her store grow from a study spot to a haven for students, giving them a relief from their rooms. “People have been seeing each other for the first time. There are so many times when students are getting a drink or breakfast, and they see a classmate or sorority sister after six months or even a year,” Holtmann-Schnur says.

“Students have been craving some sense of normalcy, so when they walk in and hear the music on and see friends, it provides them with something that feels fun and normal but still safe, and that’s hard to find right now,” she adds.

The new For Five Coffee in Foggy Bottom has also seen college students use their space to replicate what they can’t currently get on campus. Store manager Cortez Jackson says that students regularly use the space for club meetings and group projects.

And as students have relied on coffee shops to study and socialize, they have inadvertently supported these businesses in challenging times. When For Five first opened last August, offices were still mostly closed, so the students who lived around the shop represented a majority of business, according to Jackson. Similarly, for Philz in Dupont, Holtmann-Schnur notes that students accounted for a third of the store’s revenue this year. 

Students living in college neighborhoods who can no longer rely on campus dining have also frequented nearby restaurants far more often. As Bassard describes, this has helped him “appreciate and support the local restaurant businesses around me, such as Cactus Cantina, Raku, Barcelona, and Jetties.” 

Meanwhile, according to Arnett, students living in entirely new areas like Rosslyn are exploring joints not normally on their radar, whether that’s grabbing food at Sushi Rock and Taco Rock or getting a drink at Tupelo Honey and Continental Beer Garden. Arnett says that he’s also noticed his classmates branching out and trying D.C. restaurants that are traditionally less popular with college crowds, like Old Ebbitt Grill and The Hamilton. He says that he, for one, “never heard of D.C. Restaurant Week until COVID.”

While students have spread across the city, their college experience this year has also brought energy to the communities and people they have recreated it with. 

“It’s when people see each other for the first time in a long time. That’s what gives me the most heart-warming experiences. You see someone run across the room or give someone a hug or elbow tap after not seeing them for six months. That’s the reason why you come to work every day,” Holtmann-Schnur says. 

As the vaccine roll-out sped up, universities like Georgetown, GW, and American announced intentions to host at least some in-person classes with virtual accessibility. On March 12, nearly a year after students left campus, GW president Thomas LeBlanc sent a letter to students asserting the university’s plan to be “in person to the fullest extent possible this fall,” while incorporating flexibility “to meet the varying in-person and remote needs.” Some, like Georgetown, even re-started hybrid classes this April as case counts declined.

With access to campus returning, many students are planning to return back to their campus neighborhoods. “The opening up of campuses also feels like the opening up of hope really, and optimism about what’s next,” Bassard says. 

But he adds that while this particular experience was temporary, the uniquely bonded cohort of students has gained a deeper appreciation for unfamiliar parts of D.C., as well as what really matters in their college experience. They’ve learned, Bassard says, that “home or campus is not a specific place, but where your peers are.”