Being a graduate student in Seattle in the time of COVID-19

With the University of Washington shutting down and fear of the virus growing, graduate students face a unique and frightening situation.

The University of Washington cherry blossoms are expected to bloom at the end of March, and usually draws thousands of local, national, and international visitors. It’s unclear how severely visitation will be impacted by fears of COVID-19. Image source: GoToVan @ Flickr.com.

A few weeks ago, it was business as usual. I was responsible for teaching a laboratory section to students in my statistics course, while working on my own dissertation research. I was still tutoring undergraduate athletes in…