Graduating seniors reflect on a college experience that began in isolation.
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00:00 I had never imagined a situation where my prom and my graduation would be canceled,
00:08 or that I would be starting university online.
00:12 I pretty viscerally remember how odd it felt to be graduating virtually.
00:20 Our ceremony was online, so I had my mom and my sisters behind me in the house,
00:25 and all of my classmates just on a screen.
00:28 I just remember the uneasy feeling when everything came to an abrupt stop,
00:32 because I had to really think about, like, who am I and who do I want to be?
00:36 Without school, what are the things that bring me joy,
00:40 and what are the things that give me identity?
00:42 Entering college during the pandemic was a very different experience.
00:54 There unfortunately was no in-person programming, especially in the very beginning.
00:59 You know, there was no orientation.
01:01 I was trying so hard to make friends my freshman year,
01:04 but it was hard because you couldn't, like, you couldn't really, you know, be with other people.
01:09 Meeting people kind of had to be outside on our own initiative,
01:14 and it was very discouraged by the university.
01:17 So we ended up, you know, getting in very tight-knit groups with the few people that we could see.
01:23 That year for myself was pretty isolating.
01:25 I really didn't know a lot of the people in my class, and I still really don't.
01:29 It was a complicated relationship between the students,
01:38 especially the ones living in the dorms, because, like, most of our classes were on Zoom,
01:41 and then, like, the RAs and the administration, you know,
01:44 because they were constantly trying to enforce, you know, rules that went against, you know,
01:50 went against human nature, that went against our nature to want to, you know, meet other people.
01:54 The fact that I couldn't, you know, be around people in the way that I wanted to be,
01:59 it made me kind of question if college was for me,
02:01 and it was weird because growing up, college is what I had always looked forward to.
02:05 I did go through a really tough, a really dark period my freshman year of college.
02:09 There were times where I thought of dropping out, of giving up.
02:11 For me, it came to a point where I felt like I was wasting my time being in the dorm.
02:16 Also, with the Zoom classes, it just seemed kind of like a waste of time to me.
02:19 I ended up taking the spring semester off.
02:22 [Music]
02:29 There is such a stark difference between the graduating class of 2024
02:34 and the classes that were before us and the classes that have come after us.
02:38 We are a lot more insular.
02:41 You know, our sophomore year, we were now kind of like the same as the freshman class
02:45 because we were now exploring and doing things that we couldn't even do the year before.
02:51 So, it's almost like that experience was postponed in a way.
02:56 [Music]
03:02 I do remember having protests our freshman year.
03:04 I think it was a little different in that those protests, though,
03:10 like the school was not stopping those ones, but the ones that we've had recently,
03:15 the schools have been very vocal in stopping.
03:17 The whole conflict on our campus and across the world has just caused a lot of divisiveness
03:23 and tension, I would say, amongst students and, unfortunately, you know,
03:27 also amongst our administration and also amongst our faculty as well.
03:30 At the end of the day, you know, the response from the administration,
03:33 no one is going to be pleased with it and nobody has been pleased with it.
03:38 The relationship between students and administration is fractured.
03:42 I'm not quite sure how administration will go about repairing that going forward.
03:48 [Music]
03:53 Our main commencement did get canceled, which, you know, it happens.
04:00 It's just sad that it kind of came down to that.
04:04 It's very hard to want to celebrate at a time like this.
04:07 Sometimes you even have to force yourself to remember to celebrate things.
04:11 Like, what does celebrating look like while still remembering that there's really dark things
04:18 happening across the globe and that we need to be aware of those things, too?
04:22 Even though this time has been so difficult for so many of us and it started out pretty isolated
04:30 and now that we aren't, you know, we don't have the best relationship with administration,
04:34 it can be a bit isolating again.
04:38 I think that we have this unique ability to forge community among ourselves
04:45 and mobilize in ways that are effective, concerted, and, you know, fight for peace.
04:52 [Music]
04:58 You know, this has been a very difficult time for people our age.
05:02 People may think, like, you know, why of all people, you know, why is this happening to me?
05:08 But I think that there's a lot, there's, moving forward in your life, there's a lot of positive
05:16 you could take out of these things and how they affected you.
05:19 They could transform you for the good. You never know.
05:21 Sometimes things are going to happen that are unexpected, but that's okay because it could
05:26 eventually affect you in a positive way.
05:28 I think that one thing we can really take from, take away from, like, being part of this class
05:32 is that we're able to withstand really anything and still be empathetic to bigger picture things
05:39 that are going on in the world.
05:41 [Music]
05:48 [BLANK_AUDIO]