COVID-19 Outbreak: A Different Experience for College Seniors

By Wilson Rogers

JRN100 Stonehill News Staff Writer

Cancellations, postponements, and talk of virtual college graduations confront the class of 2020 in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States.

In normal times, college seniors get to experience and cherish the memory of walking across the stage at college graduation and being handed their diplomas. But the Class of 2020 is left with uncertainty about whether they will be experiencing this incredible day.

“Graduation was cancelled. They are saying we are going to have an in-person graduation at some point but not specific when. We are going to do an online graduation as well,” said Kevin Hachey, a student at East Carolina University in Greenville, NC.

Seniors throughout the United States are sharing Hachey’s experience as the pandemic continues to spread throughout the country and the rest of the world.

Although most seniors said they understood the need for the cancellations, many are disappointed that their senior years have been disrupted and uncertainty remains.

Families and students have been looking forward to the celebrations of the incredible accomplishment and will have to wait a bit longer than expected for ceremonies, if they happen at all.

The worldwide pandemic has not only cast a pall over graduations, it has also presented senior college students with a myriad of other obstacles with job searches and future plans.

Many questions have been left unanswered as students were recently forced to pack up their things and move home. Seniors were forced to say goodbye to a major chapter of their lives with little to no warning. Now they are left closing out their academic college careers with online classes to end the semester.

The “real world” is shaping up to be an uphill climb from the start for graduating seniors, more than it usually would, said Hachey.

First, they have to adjust to remote learning and finish their semesters.

Remote learning is a learning experience that the majority of the country has moved to at this point in time. Students attend Zoom sessions, Blackboard’s Collaborate platform, and many similar programs in order to attend classes. Many professors have made adjustments to the curriculum of the classes in addition to decisions made by schools as an entirety.

Amendments to pass/fail policies set by colleges and universities is one of the most recognizable changes being made. Individually, schools have been making decisions as to how grading will be addressed due to the sudden switch to online learning.

Stonehill College in Easton, Mass. extended the pass/fail decision period and is allowing students to take up to three classes pass/fail if 15 credits or more are being applied. The courses chosen to be made pass/fail now include classes that are major or minor requirements. Many other schools are using similar systems while some are moving to pass fail systems all together.

“At the end of the semester, you can elect a pass or fail option for each class instead of taking the grade. If you move to the pass/fail option, your GPA will not be affected. If you do not choose this option, the grade will obviously still count toward your GPA,” said Hachey.

Students are left with deciding what classes would be better to make pass/fail in order to make a GPA as attractive as possible when entering the job market following graduation.

The in-person communication that comes with being a full-time student at a college or university has been completely thrown out the window. The communication piece of this entire ordeal has taken a hit in the eyes of some students.

“Teachers are holding virtual office hours in order to answer questions as they are receiving an overwhelming amount of emails. The communication is slightly disrupted in this sense and one-on-one communication through email has taken somewhat of a hit,” said Patrick Riley, a senior criminal justice major at Bridgewater State University in Bridgewater, Mass.

Adjusting to this new communication style is an obstacle most students are facing. Not only does not being at school take a toll on communication but it also has kept students away from their part-time jobs while at school, leaving the stress of money in the present and future.

“I feel as though it will be severely more stressful as the job hunt continues and I have grown increasingly worried about my current money situation as I am no longer able to work my babysitting job that holds me over while at school,” said Stephanie Powers, a senior psychology major with a criminal justice minor at Fitchburg State University in Fitchburg, Mass.

When classes are done and diplomas delivered, then seniors have to face another challenge. In the wake of the pandemic, the economy is threatening to shift into a recession and the job market looks grim.

Many seniors are concerned about paying back student loans.

As they look ahead, seniors said they are waiting anxiously to hear about how their colleges will handle commencement ceremonies.

“It did not seem real when we got the news,” said Powers. “This is when I began to realize the severity.”