A Reflection From a Graduating Senior
Graduation is rapidly approaching for the class of 2021. Amidst the chaos of capping projects and COVID-19 regulations lies the bittersweet reality of moving on to the next chapter of life. I still remember vividly the first time I stepped foot on the Marist College campus on move-in day freshman year. There was something about it: the sun shining through the trees, the camaraderie between students, the beauty of the Hudson River and the brilliance of the architecture all working in harmony to create an enchanting atmosphere. It’s clear that this sentiment is shared by most Marist students; the beautiful May weather is guaranteed to bring students out in troves to sit on the campus green and soak up the intoxicating energy that Marist offers. Now, Marist’s latest graduating class is forced to say goodbye to a place that many of us call a second home.
While there is a certain excitement in becoming a full-time adult and enjoying the advantages that come along with it, many seniors (including myself) share a melancholic nostalgia about our experiences at Marist. The brief fraction of a lifetime that students spend at college represents a glaring disconnect from the “real world”. As cliché as it sounds, life truly isn’t the same after college. Nearly every day I’ve spent at Marist over the last four years has been filled with excitement and spontaneity. I’ve had minimal responsibilities – at least, relative to that of an adult – all of my friends were no more than a five-minute walk away and I truly never knew what the day would bring.
In retrospect, this type of lifestyle starkly contrasts with the predictability and monotony that characterizes the schedule of working a nine-to-five job. Adult life certainly yields its own set of benefits, with financial independence, the ability to start a family and other legal privileges, to name a few. These considerations, however, don’t make it any easier to say goodbye to the venue in which we’ve lived the most important and formative years of our lives. In the series finale of The Office, Andy Bernard infamously quoted, “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them”. Personally, I’ve known for the past four years that I was in the “good old days” – but that didn’t stop them from flying by.
The Class of 2021 met an unexpected hindrance in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic. Quicker than the COVID-19 rapid test, Marist students had to pack up their belongings and transition to the stressful world of online learning during a global pandemic. The necessity of digital education presented an entirely new subset of academic difficulties that academia was not initially equipped to handle. To make matters worse, the Class of 2021 had to adapt to online learning during their senior year, a year notorious for a heavy workload and difficult assignments. Perhaps most jarring of all was the displacement from the traditional college way of life. COVID-19 regulations forced students to forego traditional social activities, which exacerbated the task of maintaining a social life. This was especially challenging for the class of 2021, as senior year is traditionally the apex of many students’ social lives - bar crawls, sporting events and formals – all of which were taken away.
Although the overarching rhetoric behind the pandemic and its effects on the college experience is negative, there is something to be said about the perseverance of the Class of 2021 under such alien circumstances. We undertook the biggest challenge of our academic careers while maintaining social responsibility to hedge the threat of the virus. While graduating college in itself is a noteworthy achievement, completing senior year in the face of seemingly insurmountable roadblocks takes a tremendous amount of resolve, maturity and mental strength. For this, the Class of 2021 deserves a resounding congratulations.
Marist’s latest graduating class is forced to say goodbye to a place that many of us call a second home. Source: Greta Stuckey ‘23