The spread of the virus at Chapel Hill has students at UNCC demanding a similar move to all online classes.
The president of the student body sent a letter to administrators asking them to move to virtual learning.
This comes after Chapel Hill’s announcement late Monday that sent shockwaves through the nation after 4 COVID-19 clusters forced the move to cancel all in-person classes.
North Meck High school grad Sarah Piephoff said it’s been chaos since classes started back at Chapel Hill last week.
"Just all hell broke loose, students going to parties, throwing parties, going out to bars," Piephoff said.
She and others believe that’s why COVID-19 spread so quickly on campus- through the dorms and a fraternity, prompting school leaders to suddenly move the school to all online classes.
Fellow student Claire Hutto said, “there was definitely a general angst. A lot of students started to get sick really fast and I don’t know people with bad symptoms but knowing people you care about had COVID-19 is scary.”
Both students have taken a similar approach to try to avoid the virus, they each live in off-campus apartments with close friends and have committed to staying isolated.
Hutto lives with seven friends in an apartment and said: “We formed a pod when we first moved in we made a social contract where we listed all of our expectations of each other in the midst of coronavirus and we all signed it.”
Piephoff lives with three friends and agreed to something similar, “We decided that we're like a social bubble.”
But they know that’s not an option for all students, especially freshman who they say administration put at risk when they allowed them to move into the dorms.
Hutto said she’s been getting worried text messages from freshman friends all week.
“They would message me and say Oh my goodness a girl in my hall was just diagnosed with COVID-19 they’re moving her to the isolation dorms – we were on the elevator together," she said.
Not long after Chapel Hill made the decision to go fully online UNCC officials released a statement that the school is going forward with on-campus instruction despite concerns the students and others have raised. A UNCC spokeswoman said that is a systemwide decision that they are continually evaluating.