The news came on Monday that the university would be going online for the rest of the semester, and just like that, my senior year as I had planned it started to disappear.
I’m not sure how to really grasp the fact that my senior year came to such an abrupt end and I’m sure thousands of other students are in the same boat.
For me, college has been about moving out of my childhood home, learning to live on my own, making friends that became my family, learning to lean on those people in times of need and being the person they can lean on. It’s also supposed to be the transition that shifts you into the next stage of your life past college.
While many of us got almost all of these experiences, we will not get to have our last official college class or walk across the stage in May — we won’t get to celebrate the way that every other senior has before us.
Does it suck? Absolutely.
But it’s important to think about how lucky we have been up to this point to get all of the other college experiences.
We did get to live on our own and we did make friends that have become our second families. We got to learn from some amazing professors and some of us were able to travel the world. Maybe we even met the love of our life while in college.
College is supposed to prepare us to go out and show the world what we have learned — we still get to do that.
This probably isn’t the ending most seniors had imagined or wanted, but it’s so important to accept the challenges that life has thrown at us because that’s what makes us better and stronger people in the end.
In the meantime, check-in with your friends to make sure they’re doing well and make plans to do something to celebrate once the COVID-19 pandemic blows over.
But most of all, stay strong. Earn that degree. Finish what you started.
Molly Hackett is a writer for the Collegian and a senior in mass communications. The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and the persons interviewed and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Collegian. Please send comments to opinion@kstatecollegian.com.
