Although over a month has passed since the horrific news was plastered across the timelines, news feeds, TVs, and radios of so many, that shots had been fired on the Umpqua Community College campus in Oregon, the effects can still be felt nationwide. College campuses are reevaluating their campus security, active shooter classes are being offered, along with a slew of other preventive measures to increase the safety on college campuses around the country.

Yes, all things that students, faculty, and staff should take advantage of, of course, but at the end of the day so many are still left wondering, “what if”? As a college student you can’t help but wonder what you would do if all of a sudden you found yourself sitting in your Tuesday morning 8:30 class and you were no longer nodding off to the sound of your professors lecture, but rather staring down someone who could potentially be the decider of your life or death.

We’d all like to think that we would be the hero that talks the shooter down and no one gets hurt and we all go home at the end of the day, but unfortunately that’s not always the case with many of these shootings. For many of us the Virginia Tech shooting that occurred in April of 2007 was one of our earliest memories we have of a mass casualty on a college campus, and sadly too many school shootings have followed since that solemn day. But this recent shooting seemed to hit especially close to home for many of us who are now currently in college.

The thought of being notified through the school’s emergency system that there is an active shooter on your campus is an absolute unthinkable feeling. What would you do next? Where would you go? Who would you call? All questions and many more, which have crossed any student’s mind who have tried to put themselves in that position. Or what if you got word that a shooter was at your best friend, cousin, boyfriend/girlfriend, or sibling’s school?

How would one be able to cope knowing you are so far and so helpless in the situation? But how can one truly put themselves in such a horrifying position, and really know how they would feel?

These are all real thoughts and many more, that so many actually experienced on October 1^st 2015 in Oregon, April 16^th 2007 in Virginia, and many other places that have experienced such tragedy. So if we take a minute to try to even attempt to put ourselves in the shoes of one of these individuals, our hearts immediately go out to each and every one affected by such tragedy. And although the televisions have come to hush with all the news, and the tear jerking Facebook stories no longer fill our news feeds we can still see that the pain from the event can still be felt each and everyday, and for this you are forever in our hearts.