Class of 2021 Facing COVID-19 Related Challenges
Grace Milone
Editor
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It is no surprise that COVID-19 has affected students in many ways. A major challenge that the class of 2021 faces is living through the pandemic in both their junior and senior year of high school.
While junior year focuses on college tours, standardized testing, and grades; senior year is all about the social events. Unfortunately, COVID-19 has put a pause on both of those important years causing some struggles for the class of 2021.
“The pandemic pretty severely disrupted my plans for junior year. Due to the lockdown and the initial panic surrounding the virus, I missed out on taking the SAT during the spring and my own proper college tour.
Though AP Testing was quite different this year, I felt pretty at home and was one of the lucky few that didn’t experience errors during the test,” Senior Nick Gamolin said.
A major part of junior year is the preparation for college applications. Between college tours, standardized tests, and building a resume, it can be a stressful time, especially amidst a pandemic.
“I was fortunate and was able to join many clubs and take part in important extracurriculars before the lockdown started, and the extra time indoors gave me more time to focus on my writing. However, I understand that the people planning on doing most of these things their
senior year are in a very difficult position right now,” Gamolin said.
“Yes, I do believe that there is more pressure on the c/o 2021 students during the college application process due to our lack of opportunities to differentiate each other from our peers. With testing and activities getting cancelled or postponed, it has severely limited the types of things we can talk about on our application,” Gamolin said.
Senior year of high school is all about the social events. Football games, homecoming, pep rallys, prom, graduation and so many other activities that students wait four years to be a part of. Although the future of the 2020-21 school year is still uncertain, those events do not look likely for the class of 2021.
“With sports games losing spectators and clubs being run virtually, the pandemic has really taken away a lot of opportunities for social interaction," Gamolin said. "Though we’re fortunate to still have face to face learning, I can only see and interact with half my class. Meeting and getting to know classmates I haven’t had in previous years was a part of this year that I was really looking
forward to."
“I feel that seniors are still managing to find ways to engage in extracurriculars, even amongst the pandemic. Clubs are being run virtually, fall sports are still happening, and other forms of activities are still finding ways to exist while keeping everyone safe. I wouldn’t really say there’s a lack of things for seniors to do, just that these activities are much different than they have
been for the past few years,” Gamolin said.
Another difficult thing to factor into this new type of learning is clubs. This year Gamolin is President of FBLA. While that is a very exciting accomplishment, it is difficult to celebrate completely knowing how much it will be effected this year.
“Though I’m okay with club meetings being run virtually, I am disappointed that during my year as head of the club I won’t be able to explore my favorite aspects of it. Going to varying levels of competition with my friends was always the highlight of my years in CV FBLA, and it's sad to know that the last chance for me to enjoy those experiences has likely already passed,” Gamolin
said.
While many hope to return fully back to normal in the Spring, things are still up in the air. With high hopes, students of the class of 2021 just hope to get a partially normal school year to end their high school careers.
“Going back full time in spring would be amazing. As new and interesting as social distancing is, the novelty is beginning to wear off, and I feel it's safe to say that most people are simply waiting for things to go back to normal," Gamolin said. "Concluding senior year with a normal prom and graduation would mean a lot to the seniors whose hopes I believe are already quite low.”