PITTSFORD, N.Y. — Students at St. John Fisher College are getting ready for life off-campus as the school announced it would move to remote learning following a spike in COVID-19 cases. 

"It's very sad to kinda just have to go back home and leave it all," said Matthew Crozzoli, a senior childhood education major from Fairport.

He explained that even before St. John Fisher College decided to move to remote learning, campus life had changed a lot.

"We all wear masks in the classrooms. We are all social distanced and in a lot of the classes that you are usually doing group work in, it's so different because you have to separate. We are all working on our own computers but together at the same time. It's a very different experience than I'm normally used to in education classrooms," said Crozzoli.

The college said Tuesday that students on-campus need to leave their dorms no later than Wednesday night at 9 p.m. and then quarantine at home for two weeks.

An email to students says that if they need more time to move out, they have to request it.

Mikayla Santulli, a nursing major from Syracuse, was shocked to hear the news and is now scrambling to move out.

“It means a lot of stress coming my way. I’m a nursing major so that just makes it ten times harder and also just leaving all my friends and like the relationships that I’ve built here,” said Santulli.

Santulli feels that learning remotely will be an adjustment for her.

“I think that helps a lot knowing that I’m not the only person going through this but also I live with three of my other best friends so that’s really helpful,” said Santulli.

Moving off-campus holds a lot of unknowns for Crozzoli as he doesn't know how this will affect him when he starts student teaching in the spring.

"I think it is for the best, just because you can tell the cases went up from like we had 12 to 64 in the past week and as it gets colder, people are going to be partying inside and it's just going to go up and up and up. And so I think it was the right choice as much as it sucks, it's the way it has to be," said Crozzoli.

The college says it is working on policies regarding room and board credits or refunds and that more information on the shut-down will be forthcoming.