Better for the Experience

What makes the Class of 2020 unique isn’t our accomplishments or accolades, but rather the obstacles that have been placed before us and how we’ve chosen to react to them. 

Born on the skirts of the 9/11 aftermath, our sense of normalcy has been drastically different than many other generations. Old enough to understand the terror of the Sandy Hook shooting, 2020 graduates were among the first classes to witness the countless news cycles that have depicted similar tragic details among districts across the U.S. and the drastic changes in how schools approach active shooter drills. Rapid climate change has altered how we view natural disasters. Social media and media outlets have desensitized us to violence and allowed us to form opinions on the kind of culture we’d like to hand down to our future children. And now, amidst civil unrest and a global pandemic, we will graduate and take the first steps into adulthood.

While it may be easy to blame the unfortunate circumstances that have taken place during our most developmental years on past generations’ decisions, we have also witnessed the inauguration of America’s first black president, the legalization of same-sex marriage, the first-ever all female spacewalk, and major environmental reform to combat increases in oil spills. For seniors, the bad events have been just as impactful in our growth as the exciting ones. How we think, interact with each other, and approach problems are direct representations of the people and occurrences that have shaped us into the individuals we are today – because at the end of the road, who we were as people will be what history remembers. The Class of 2020 is a talented group of athletes and musicians, respectively, but what state titles we do or don’t hold will cease to matter the minute we cross the stage at graduation. 

We may not always make the best decisions (remember the Tide Pods?), but I like to think that we don’t make those same mistakes twice. Seniors are adventurous and ready to learn. We’re hyperaware of social inequities and are eager to use our voices to shed light on their consequences. But above all, seniors are resilient. After missing out on two months of classes and a plethora of “lasts,” this group has had to learn to accept what was out of their control and make the most out of a bizarre situation. I find it hard to say that this class was ‘knocked down’ as many of our grandparents were called to serve their country in conflict during this age, but what seemed like a setback quickly became a time for seniors to regroup and reprioritize…to figure out what was going to be essential in our lives moving forward.

As memories fade and we forget who was involved in what, I hope that seniors will be remembered not for being the “corona class,” but rather for being the group of students who were perhaps dealt a bad hand in the last minutes of the game and decided to forgo wallowing in self-pity and instead grow from the experience.