Mourning the loss of an entire senior year to zoom university
ROWAN BORN | JOUR 414 CAPSTONE
I guess the only thing that I really missed out on was the idea of what I thought it was going to be. Nothing really changed. We’re forced to shift direction, and maybe we end up at a different but equally okay place.”
– HAILEY KRAGELJ, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CLASS OF 2020
In college, senior year is typically students’ most memorable, impactful year that prepares graduates to move on to the real world. However, due to the unprecedented nature of COVID-19, the class of 2021 has been forced to reduce this huge life transition to a laptop screen. Though the class of 2020 had to make the same sacrifice, the class of 2021 did not get even a small taste of conventional last-year traditions, forcing current seniors to take matters into their own hands to make the little time they had left count.
Taken from a variety of universities (including USC, obviously), this story is an amalgam of those student-created experiences and narratives in wake of a whole senior year on zoom university, capturing the ups, downs, surprises, and lessons learned.
Further, considering graduation may not bring about much change in graduates’ lives because pandemic recovery will be an ongoing society-wide effort, this story captures what expectations the class of 2021 has, if any, with moving from the “school” screen to the “real world” screen. Beneath the sentimental stories, I address questions pertaining to students’ job prospects, social outlook, and other specific life consequences that may affect this generation of graduates in post-pandemic America.