CNN — 

Reid Seybold’s voice shook as he recalled the texts he sent loved ones from the classroom where he barricaded himself, as a barrage of gunshots, screams and sirens turned his university from a picturesque Florida campus into a crime scene.

“I love you,” he wrote to his boyfriend and family. “I may never see you again.”

Evidence markers have since been cleared from the lawns and walkways of Florida State University, where shell casings were scattered when the son of a local sheriff’s deputy gunned down victims, killing two people and injuring six others on Thursday.

But as students get ready to return to campus, where the echoes of the tragedy still linger, many fear it’s too soon.

Classes are set to resume Monday, but the university will be offering remote options and waiving mandatory attendance to allow students more time to process the tragedy, Richard McCullough, the university’s president, announced Saturday night.

Hours earlier, McCullough had initially said classes were to resume on Monday, with students having the option to reach out to staff members if they didn’t feel ready to do so. The announcement was met with outrage.

More than 1,300 people signed a Change.org petition demanding the university allow students to attend classes remotely. A video from the president posted on Facebook was immediately flooded with comments from students, staff and parents slamming the decision to resume classes just days after the mass shooting.

“We as students feel that this is completely inappropriate and insensitive,” Celina Westerberg, who organized the petition, wrote. “Three days is not nearly enough time for anyone to process through what took place.”

“This will cause extreme distress and likely panic attacks for many…We were given a week off school for snow; we can accommodate to students who just nearly lost their lives,” Westerberg wrote.

Seybold said he shares the anger that followed the university’s announcement. As the days go by, he said it’s becoming harder to recount the details of the shooting. The three sleepless nights since the tragedy have haunted him, and he said he can’t even begin to imagine returning to campus, let alone to the same building where he hid during the chaos.

“I don’t know how to get to class on Monday, frankly I’m not ready,” Seybold said, adding he’s still waiting to hear from his professor about what will happen with their classes for the rest of the week. “I’m afraid of a copycat, the possibility that somebody else comes on campus and does the same thing.”

The senior political science major wonders how he will be able to focus in the classrooms where he hid from the gunman, without being overwhelmed by a flood of traumatic memories.

“The details are burned into my brain, and I don’t even have to be in the room,” he said. “The night after, I slept for 30 minutes because it kept playing over and over in my head.”

“We want everyone to receive the support and help they need,” McCullough said in the updated announcement. “For some students that may mean not going back into the classroom. For others, the idea of community and gathering, as well as the opportunity to focus on academics, may be beneficial. There is no single right answer for everyone.”

The remote option is “probable for many courses” except for certain classes, like labs, in which case the instructors will coordinate additional options with students by Monday night, he said.

“Students: If you decide not to attend classes this week, we understand. The university has waived all mandatory attendance policies that affect your grade,” McCullough’s statement read. “Absences will be excused by the university. If you decide not to attend classes, please contact your instructor about how to complete any required coursework. Students who feel they cannot complete a course at this time will have the option to request an incomplete grade.”

The university president also instructed faculty members to update their gradebooks as soon as possible to provide students with the current grade they have in the course.

“It’s going to affect us for the rest of our life,” Seybold said. “We won’t let this affect us to the point where we will be taken down, we are stronger than this, but it’s going to change us.”

Several memorials of balloons, flower bouquets, candles and stuffed animals could be seen all around the university’s student union over the weekend, along with messages of support such as “stay strong,” and pleas for gun and mental health reform. Two white crosses with blue hearts were erected amid the memorial, carrying the victims’ names – Robert Morales and Tiru Chabba – and messages of love for them.

This is Florida’s sixth mass shooting this year and the 81st across the country, according to the Gun Violence Archive. It comes seven years after a mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, left 17 dead.

“This is a normal thing for us, but it shouldn’t be,” Seybold said. Two of his friends who survived the FSU shooting had survived school shootings before. “This was already something that I thought of. Am I safe where I am at? But now I’m doing it everywhere, I’m looking over my shoulder at every point, everywhere I’m at is a threat assessment now.”

The FSU president’s message also included resources for students and staff to access counseling and psychological services if they choose to.

An urgent response to mental health issues arising in children and teens who survive a school shooting, or gun violence in general, is critical to preserving their future, according to mental health experts.

Immediately following a school shooting, survivors who were in the direct vicinity of the attack – such as in the classroom where it happened – as well as students who were in the building at all may begin to exhibit signs of distress, experts say.

Some experts have reported observing lasting impacts on students’ educational paths, from chronic absences to being more likely to repeat a grade.

Along with early detection of the warning signs and appropriately responding to them by seeking professional help, mental health professionals say long-term support from family, schools and communities will play important roles in helping survivors and victims recover and manage their trauma.