One week after Superstorm Sandy slammed the most populous section of the country and shut down college campuses throughout the Northeast, students headed back to class Monday and tried to resume a normal schedule.
Much of the storm's devastation occurred in New Jersey, but many college campuses there are back up and running, some more quickly than their hometowns.
While power at Princeton University is fully restored and most of the 110 fallen trees have been cleared off campus walkways, the Daily Princetonian reports, around 40 percent of Princeton, N.J., residents remain without power. As the DP notes, Sandy highlighted the differences between the university and the town:
While undergraduate students enjoyed guaranteed food and warm shelter and only experienced a brief five-minute power outage, the town still copes with general power outages, closed roads and gas supply shortages all while temperatures drop significantly.
Graduate students who live off campus also did not have the same luck as undergraduates. As of Sunday afternoon, Stanworth and Ferris Thompson apartments still did not have power, according to University spokesperson Martin Mbugua.
Rutgers University, also in New Jersey, was scheduled to resume classes Monday as well, although the Camden campus got back to work Thursday, according to the Star-Ledger. Caldwell College, a Catholic school located in the state's Essex County, was closed all of last week after it lost power and saw trees knocked down around campus. Seton Hall University also resumed classes Monday, though the school acknowledged gas shortages in the state will make it difficult for staff and commuter students to make it to campus.
Students in New York also headed back to class after power outages and cancellations.
New York University lost power in most of its buildings last Monday and evacuated many of its dorms, forcing students to take refuge in student centers on campus or with friends in areas of New York City that still had power (or by sneaking into nearby Fordham University's residence halls).
Power is now back on in NYU's academic buildings and residence halls, but hot water is still a rarity as city crews continue to work on repairing utilities in lower Manhattan. Classes have resumed at NYU, too, but getting there remains an obstacle. Most New York City subway lines are back up and running, but several vital lines are still out of operation.
Some City University of New York campuses began resuming classes Friday. The Brookdale Health Sciences campus on East 25th Street temporarily relocated classes to the main East 68th Street Hunter College campus. New York magazine reports classes at Pace University in the Financial District -- an area that still lacks a functional mass transit system -- will not resume until Wednesday due to a lack of heat or hot water.
Further north, in Massachusetts, most college campuses escaped the worst of the storm's damage and students resumed classes last week. The same was true for the University of Delaware and most schools in the Washington, D.C., area.
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