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WILKES-BARRE &mdash; Laura Bogert felt pretty safe about moving back onto King&rsquo;s College campus this week, and was happy to see friends again. But when asked about her biggest concern in returning to school amid the COVID-19 pandemic, she gave a bit of a surprising answer.
				&ldquo;I just hope they don&rsquo;t send us back home again,&rdquo; the physician assistant major said, recalling the abrupt closing of schools last March. It&rsquo;s not so much that she doesn&rsquo;t want to go home, but she and fellow PA major Liz (who didn&rsquo;t want to give her last name) voiced concern over unwittingly carrying the sometimes-asymptomatic disease back to older, at-risk family members.
				Asked about King&rsquo;s efforts to keep student safe from the disease, Liz, from Connecticut, said &ldquo;I think they&rsquo;re doing everything they can.&rdquo; But the problem is student behavior off campus and outside the classroom. There have already been outbreaks of COVID-19 at several colleges and universities across the country that opened earlier.
				&ldquo;A lot of students are going to want to see their friends, but they&rsquo;re not going to crowd into a basement,&rdquo; Liz predicted. &ldquo;People at this school are more responsible than that.&rdquo;
				Still, both women said, they aren&rsquo;t very concerned about getting sick. With the memory of King&rsquo;s and other schools closing abruptly last March fresh in their minds, there may be a bigger concern lurking for students as they head back into dorms and classrooms.
				&ldquo;We&rsquo;re really worried about finishing,&rdquo; Laura, from Milford, said as they chatted on Public Square. &ldquo;Five months ago, all of a sudden they just told us to go home.&rdquo;
				A few blocks away on North Main Street, Michael Fenton stood outside Essef Hall amid the belongings of his daughter Veronica, who will be starting her first year in the Physician Assistant program Monday.
				&ldquo;She toured this place by herself and she liked it,&rdquo; he said while waiting for Veronica and his wife Suzie to return from an initial visit to the dorm. He felt the risk of starting school during the pandemic was small, outweighed by his daughter&rsquo;s success getting into the PA program.
				&ldquo;My biggest thing is, I want her to finish,&rdquo; he said, conceding he shouldn&rsquo;t be worried because Veronica&rsquo;s academic record so far is so much better than his own high school record.
				&ldquo;She totally blew me out of the water,&rdquo; he said with a laugh.
				When Veronica emerged, she conceded it has been a very strange year. Like students across the state, she finished her senior year of high school in spring learning online at home, and now she was starting college with everyone in face masks. Yet she was happy to be on campus, listing &ldquo;meeting people&rdquo; as the thing she looked forward to the most.
				She had worried that might not happen much if some of her classes were virtual. Some friends attending other schools are facing that fate. She&rsquo;s very happy, at least for the first semester, that &ldquo;all of mine are in person.&rdquo;
				And the virus?
				&ldquo;I feel pretty safe,&rdquo; she added.

Coming to college in the middle of a pandemic