Covid-19 Ruined My High School Senior Year
by SOPHIA C.
Covid-19 had an effect on many things, one of those things being schools. Having schools close, due to the pandemic, created a huge impact on all of our lives. At first I was excited to not have school for two weeks but then that changed after we were told that we were not returning back to school for the rest of the school year. In the beginning, I liked online school because I was able to make up and get my grades up. But then it got tiring and I started to lose motivation to wake up in the morning to do the same things over and over again. Online school was also uncomfortable because I did not always want my camera to be on. I didn’t want to do all the work. Some teachers were giving more work than usual due to the fact that we were home but they failed to realize how being home was affecting us mentally. I just wanted to go back to school, I wanted to hang out with my friends again, and I just wanted to be able to go back outside without having to wear a mask. However, this pandemic helped me find out what I wanted to do as a career. I always knew I wanted to be in the medical field but I didn’t know what exactly until I saw how we need nurses and how they were a major help to handle the pandemic. Which inspired me to want to become a nurse.
Being a junior when the pandemic first started back in March 2020, I didn’t understand how much it may have sucked to the seniors who weren’t able to have a senior trip, prom, or graduation. All of your life, you work hard because you look forward to having those experiences. It sucks when it’s all taken away at the last minute; right when girls had just brought their prom dresses or right when you were about to pack for your senior trip -- just like that everything is taken from you. Chasiti Reed, a high school senior in the spring of 2020 stated that most of the girls in her school had already gotten their prom dresses, including her. Another student, Giancarlo Herrera, stated that the last few months of senior year, March-June, were supposed to be the happiest time of high school with senior activities, college decision making, and graduation. Graduating high school is important because it’s the biggest moment of your life, it’s one of the greatest stories you’ll ever want to tell.
Graduation is important to seniors because it’s the beginning of their freedom and adulthood, however not having a real graduation isn’t the only thing that worried high school juniors and seniors during the pandemic. It was also the new problem of how they were going to pay for college now that more than half of the United States went unemployed. 27% of juniors and seniors polled stated that their plans after graduation had changed and 44% of them stated that the pandemic affected their plans to pay for college. These changes may include going to a community college or a public university instead of going to a private university or having to take a gap year to be able to save up more. Many people may have wanted to go away to get the real college experience but now were not able to because of the pandemic and half of the United States are struggling financially.
Being a senior now, I understand what seniors of 2020 felt because we got our senior year taken away too. School is better now since we’re so used to doing online but things are getting back normal. We’re able to go back into school but it’s not completely back to normal since there are more rules we have to follow due to Covid. Anne Davis from TeachThought created a list of ways Covid has changed schools. The list of new rules includes wearing a mask or face shield at all times even during PE and sports, less students in a classroom, students are not able to share objects with each other, better ventilation by adding new ACs, having to keep at least six feet apart, monitoring symptoms, and having Covid test kits. It was weird for me when I came back to school since it’s not what I was used to from how school was before. It’s weird because I have to wear my mask all day, only seeing a few students everyday since we have to stay in one room, one student at a time in the bathroom, etc. I’m used to having crowded hallways, being able to move around throughout the day, being around people and friends, and being taught in an actual class instead of online.
Besides having more rules and regulations, student’s performance changed in fall 2020 from a typical school year. Researchers at the Brookings Institute found that students in elementary school and middle school performed the same in reading in fall 2020 as the same-grade students did in fall 2019. But in math, their performance in 2020 was about 5 to 10 percentile points lower than in 2019. Schools closing due to the pandemic affected us all in different ways but it mostly affected those who come from low-income families. From May 28 to June 2,2020, about 20% of children were using paper materials sent to the home by the school because they did not have access to online resources. That 20% was made up of only children who come from low-income families.
Being able to experience a pandemic like this really changed everything for much of the world. I used to not want to go to school everyday without realizing how much of a blessing it was until it got taken away from me. I now try not take anything for granted because I now know how easy it is to be taken away.
Work Cited
Basu, Shumita. “Inside the Minds of High School Seniors Grappling with the Impact of Coronavirus.” Gothamist, 10 Apr. 2020.
Davis, Anne. “9 Ways COVID Has Changed School in 2021.” TeachThought, 5 Dec. 2020.
Fox, Michelle, “Go to College or Skip It? High School Students Face a New Reality Due to Coronavirus.” CNBC, 24 Apr. 2020.
Kuhfeld, Megan, et. al. “How Is COVID-19 Affecting Student Learning?” Brookings, 3 Dec. 2020.
McElrath, Kevin. “Nearly 93% of Households With School-Age Children Report Some Form of Distance Learning During COVID-19.” US Census Bureau, 26 Aug. 2020.
Being a junior when the pandemic first started back in March 2020, I didn’t understand how much it may have sucked to the seniors who weren’t able to have a senior trip, prom, or graduation. All of your life, you work hard because you look forward to having those experiences. It sucks when it’s all taken away at the last minute; right when girls had just brought their prom dresses or right when you were about to pack for your senior trip -- just like that everything is taken from you. Chasiti Reed, a high school senior in the spring of 2020 stated that most of the girls in her school had already gotten their prom dresses, including her. Another student, Giancarlo Herrera, stated that the last few months of senior year, March-June, were supposed to be the happiest time of high school with senior activities, college decision making, and graduation. Graduating high school is important because it’s the biggest moment of your life, it’s one of the greatest stories you’ll ever want to tell.
Graduation is important to seniors because it’s the beginning of their freedom and adulthood, however not having a real graduation isn’t the only thing that worried high school juniors and seniors during the pandemic. It was also the new problem of how they were going to pay for college now that more than half of the United States went unemployed. 27% of juniors and seniors polled stated that their plans after graduation had changed and 44% of them stated that the pandemic affected their plans to pay for college. These changes may include going to a community college or a public university instead of going to a private university or having to take a gap year to be able to save up more. Many people may have wanted to go away to get the real college experience but now were not able to because of the pandemic and half of the United States are struggling financially.
Being a senior now, I understand what seniors of 2020 felt because we got our senior year taken away too. School is better now since we’re so used to doing online but things are getting back normal. We’re able to go back into school but it’s not completely back to normal since there are more rules we have to follow due to Covid. Anne Davis from TeachThought created a list of ways Covid has changed schools. The list of new rules includes wearing a mask or face shield at all times even during PE and sports, less students in a classroom, students are not able to share objects with each other, better ventilation by adding new ACs, having to keep at least six feet apart, monitoring symptoms, and having Covid test kits. It was weird for me when I came back to school since it’s not what I was used to from how school was before. It’s weird because I have to wear my mask all day, only seeing a few students everyday since we have to stay in one room, one student at a time in the bathroom, etc. I’m used to having crowded hallways, being able to move around throughout the day, being around people and friends, and being taught in an actual class instead of online.
Besides having more rules and regulations, student’s performance changed in fall 2020 from a typical school year. Researchers at the Brookings Institute found that students in elementary school and middle school performed the same in reading in fall 2020 as the same-grade students did in fall 2019. But in math, their performance in 2020 was about 5 to 10 percentile points lower than in 2019. Schools closing due to the pandemic affected us all in different ways but it mostly affected those who come from low-income families. From May 28 to June 2,2020, about 20% of children were using paper materials sent to the home by the school because they did not have access to online resources. That 20% was made up of only children who come from low-income families.
Being able to experience a pandemic like this really changed everything for much of the world. I used to not want to go to school everyday without realizing how much of a blessing it was until it got taken away from me. I now try not take anything for granted because I now know how easy it is to be taken away.
Work Cited
Basu, Shumita. “Inside the Minds of High School Seniors Grappling with the Impact of Coronavirus.” Gothamist, 10 Apr. 2020.
Davis, Anne. “9 Ways COVID Has Changed School in 2021.” TeachThought, 5 Dec. 2020.
Fox, Michelle, “Go to College or Skip It? High School Students Face a New Reality Due to Coronavirus.” CNBC, 24 Apr. 2020.
Kuhfeld, Megan, et. al. “How Is COVID-19 Affecting Student Learning?” Brookings, 3 Dec. 2020.
McElrath, Kevin. “Nearly 93% of Households With School-Age Children Report Some Form of Distance Learning During COVID-19.” US Census Bureau, 26 Aug. 2020.
