LEXINGTON, Ky. — Students are back on college campuses across the commonwealth for the first time since the pandemic's onset in March.

The University of Kentucky spent the last several months preparing classrooms for a safe environment during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I mean every first day of school’s a new first day, but this one is definitely one for the books,” said UK senior Maya Monk.

Monk is one of thousands of students back on campus at UK for the first day of the fall semester, which is anything but normal.

"I mean, especially with the mask coverings and everything like that with the teachers distancing in the classrooms is a new first day for me, I don't feel like a senior,” added Monk.

One by one, students filed into a ballroom that’s been converted into one of the largest classrooms on campus. It now hosts students participating in hybrid classes that mix in-person instruction with virtual learning.

"Yeah, I think that we have to fight our way through. But more than that, I think that as long as we're all flexible and we all come at it with our very best that, like any other semester, we'll make it,” explained graduate student Greg Gibson.

The university says planning started in the late spring on how to re-configure about 20 million square feet of campus to comply with physical and social distancing requirements. Two of the new solutions included removing close to 10,000 seats from campus and printing nearly 35,000 signs to promote ongoing social distancing efforts on campus.

"All of our classrooms now have sanitizing wipes and they have hand sanitizer. And you would have noticed also at the front of the class of plexiglass shield, if the professor is so inclined to use that," said Mary Vosevich, vice president for facilities management at UK.

There will be no Labor Day holiday or fall break for students at UK this year, and the semester will end at Thanksgiving break.