Graduating into a Pandemic
Graduating college is terrifying. For those who are able to attend college, graduation is an entrance to the rest of your life. Some leave with job offers, some leave with less of an idea of what they want to do than when they entered, and some leave unemployed but with a precise idea of their next step. My friends and I all fell into one of those three categories. What we did know at least was that we wanted to go out with a bang. Leave no stone unturned at the beautiful university we had called home for four years. Our little group was going to disperse right after graduation so we wanted all the time together that we could have. However, the universe had another plan.
Imagine this, senior year spring break. March 2020. We had been hearing talk of this new illness that was spreading around in China. As naive as we were at that time, we didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. However, my grandfather did. As someone who worked closely with health care, he warned us starting in January. “This is very serious and will get bad quick,” he would say. My family and I didn’t listen. He died March 8, 2020. As heartbroken as I am that he is no longer with us, I am really glad he didn’t have to live through his nightmare.
So on March 17, St. Patrick’s Day, my school declared that all classes would be online for two weeks while we try to “flatten the curve”; remember that phrase? So I went home, mostly to be with my family after the passing of my grandfather. I packed up for two weeks of online classes and drove 8 hours home. I ended up living out of that suitcase for three months.
My senior spring semester went from being the best time of my life to something I couldn’t have imagined in my wildest thoughts. I never took for granted that I was able to go home to be safe and quarantine with my family. I empathize with those who were unable to do that for whatever reason.
The beginning of the pandemic was terrifying. We all remember, I’m sure. I described it as being in a war with an enemy you couldn’t see. Every time you stepped outside of your home you knew you were surrounded, but couldn’t ever see the attacker. It was such an odd sense of fear. Something I had never felt before: a stagnant, fear-filled life.
As school continued, they kept saying “two more weeks”; eventually they gave up. Our teachers were as confused and frustrated as we were. Because it was the first go around of online school and no one was prepared, some professors gave up. There was no way that they could grade as harshly because of the collective trauma we were experiencing. A world trauma. It was weird to think about it that way.
As we neared the end of the semester, it was clear we were not returning to school. Final tests and projects changed to papers. My senior project went from being a performance opportunity to a paper. I accepted that my graduation ceremony wouldn’t be happening. My friends and I cried about it together. All of our hard work and we’d never get to experience the excitement and joy that senior spring brings.
Post grad life was even weirder. Some of my friends were lucky and graduated with already secured jobs. Granted, everything was still shut down, so they were furloughed or working remotely, but they had jobs. A lot of us had no idea what we were going to do. As a theater major and someone who wanted to perform live on stage, my entire life and career aspirations were put on hold: no voice lessons, no dance classes, no acting training and no performing. As much as theater was my career path, it was also my joy and creative outlet. The depression from losing that alone was enough to take my fellow actors and I down.
As the end of 2020 neared, I figured it was time to start looking for a job. Something to keep me occupied while we waited for the end of the pandemic…which still hasn’t come. I ended up finding a remote marketing job working with an indie author, which proved to be exactly what I needed.
Graduating college is intimidating enough as it is. Entering the real world, getting your first “big kid job”–as I like to call them–and continuing to individuate and learn about the world and your role in it. Graduating into a world that was suffering as it was in 2020 was a cruel trick of nature. My aunt started saying that everyone in their 20s–specifically age 22-26–was experiencing arrested development. “An abnormal state in which development has stopped early” is a pretty good way to describe what was happening to all of us.
Our first look at the world of adulthood stopped dead in its tracks. Even those who had been out of college for a couple years were still only just getting started in their careers. All of the 2020, 2019 and 2018 grads were competing for the same jobs. People moved home for many reasons. People lost jobs for reasons they couldn’t control.
Now I realize that everything halted. Everyone’s jobs, everyone’s development and everyone’s plans. I’m not denying that. And I’m not here to say who had it worse; anyone could argue it was their age group or their personal situation. As someone who was at a pivotal moment in my life though, I can surely say that I feel the consequences of those critical years that should have been exciting and challenging, but ended up just being rough.
