Alyssa Pybus, a sophomore at MIT who participates in the joint Harvard-MIT Army ROTC program, told The Crimson prior to the reopening of the government that without her stipend for this cycle, she planned to borrow money from her parents to pay for food.

Even after the reopening, ROTC participants have still not yet received payment.

“We have no idea when that’s going to happen, my guess would be that it would take some time,” said ROTC cadet Anne M. Nonnamaker ’16.

Reflecting on the shutdown, students at the College expressed reservations about the present state of the political system.“I feel everything that happened was a systemic issue,” said Benjamin J. Hughes ’14. “It can easily happen again. Probably will.”

As a government concentrator, Hughes said he also sees potential for the shutdown to negatively affect career outlooks. “I don’t think anyone would view what happened as positive. No one would say this is a positive or a sign of healthy democracy.”

Kathryn G. Walsh ’14, a social studies concentrator, said she believes that this incident can be a lesson for the future.

“The shutdown can’t always be used as a political pawn,” she said. “I think that the two weeks of shutdown forced both sides of the line to realize the need to work together better.”