By Sara Kaseta

Sara Kaseta is a senior fashion design major at Marist and guest contributor to the Marist Circle. We have invited contributing students in our community to write about their unique experiences with the COVID-19 outbreak. We invite you to contribute as well. If you are interested, email us at writethecircle@gmail.com.

Since the first day of freshman year, I have been dreading the date May 23,2020. This is the day I would officially graduate and have to say goodbye to Marist, the place I love the most.

As a freshman, I kept this date in the back of my mind — but it was 4 years away. I had so much time to make the most of this college experience and so many wonderful things to look forward to. I never considered the possibility that my time at Marist could be cut short, but here I am, a last semester senior, sitting at home following the news that I won’t be able to finish my studies on the Marist College campus anymore due to the COVOID-19 outbreak. I think to say I am heartbroken would be an understatement.

Sara Kaseta is a senior fashion design major at Marist who will no longer be able to see her senior collection on the Silver Needle Runway, a Marist Fashion program tradition entering its 34th year. Source: Sara Kaseta

I spent my last 3.75 years being a Fashion Design major, an apparel development teaching assistant, a member, choreographer, and board member of Marist College Dance Ensemble, and a member and board member of Alpha Sigma Tau Sorority.

I was a Fashion Design major with 21 of the most amazing, unique, funny, and talented people I have ever met. There will never be a way that I could explain the experiences we have all had together and do it justice. To put it in perspective just a little bit, we basically lived together, ate together, worked together, obviously cried together, pulled numerous all-nighters together and supported each other always.

We all had our own personal design aesthetics, personalities, and goals along the way but at the end of it all we wanted to see the collection we have spent 4 years preparing to go down the Silver Needle Runway. Since we will not be returning to school and everyone will be continuing their studies online, we will not be having that show we worked 4 years for. We won't be finishing our collections in the beautiful senior design studio in Steel Plant that we have called home for the past 8 months, we won't have the equipment to properly make our beautiful collections at home, and the worst part is we won't be finishing the requirements for our major with each other.

“We were not prepared for this, it was not on our terms, and we have just lost so much. We don’t know where to go from here.”

Outside of fashion design I have also tried to be involved on campus in other ways. I spent my last four years as a member of Marist College Dance Ensemble taking three to five dance classes a semester, being a choreographer, and holding the Graphic Design position on the board. This semester was supposed to be my last dance show. I have been spending the last 2 months choreographing a dance with my best friend who I have been dancing with for the past 11 years because that is the only way I wanted to say goodbye to dance, but sadly the show is not happening either. I won’t get that chance to dance with my best friend one last time and the amazing friends I have made through the club along the way.

I didn’t get to say goodbye to the extremely talented students that I am a teaching assistant for, my sorority sisters, my professors, and some of my closest friends. Yes, there is FaceTime and Zoom to keep in touch, but it is just such a shock that all of this basically got taken away in the blink of an eye. I have worked on accepting what is going on and I truly understand why all these measures are being taken. For seniors, it is just an unfortunate time.

This past week has been so hard for me and so many others, especially my fellow seniors, mainly because I think we lost the sense of closure. We were not prepared for this, it was not on our terms, and we have just lost so much. We don't know where to go from here.

The list of things that I wont get to experience because of this pandemic could go on and on. There are so many sorority events, senior events, nights out, river visits, dining hall dates, Ready Coffee trips, drives with my best friends, sports games, hugs, cries, hellos, and goodbyes that have gotten taken away. But through all of this, I have learned to seriously not take a single second for granted because you truly never know when it could be the last. This is just a glimpse into my last 3.75 years, but I would never change it for the world. Thank you, Marist.

COVID-19 Through the Eyes of Marist Fashion Design

MARIST CIRCLE