Student shares how COVID-19 has impacted her senior year

Having maintained a 4.0 GPA, Isha Shah has been named valedictorian of Veterans High School’s class of 2020. Like most upperclassmen in their final year, Shah was looking forward, with great excitement, to all the celebrations that come along with being a graduating senior—including the graduation ceremony itself. There was never even a thought that anything might happen to rob her and her classmates of the full senior experience. And then came COVID-19.

“It definitely feels like kind of a letdown, because I’ve been working hard for four years. No one expected this to happen,” Shah stated. “I feel like graduation still hangs in the balance,” she said, citing that May 22 at 8 p.m. is still a tentative date and time on Veterans High School’s calendar. “My school, and Houston County as a whole, are doing everything they can to make this year memorable for us. So, I’m hoping that they’re still able to put together something that celebrates all of us seniors [who are] graduating.”

Though Shah is still optimistic that a commencement might take place, she has accepted the fact that a senior prom will not likely happen. “I got the opportunity to go last year for my junior prom, but,” she confessed, “I was definitely looking forward to going to senior prom with my friends. This is our last year of high school, and prom would have been kind of like our last dance. That was going to be something special.”

Shah noted that she is not alone; many peers share her disappointment. According to her, senior prom is the time that those who are graduating often go above and beyond, in a way that they don’t do for the junior prom. With it being their last one, they try to make it extra-special and memorable. “For that opportunity to have been taken away from so many people is just really sad,” she stated.

For Shah and many others, the senior prom is not the only specialized activity that is being missed in the aftermath of the premature closure of schools. “I’m the president of BETA Club, and we had a lot of activities planned. We were planning our induction ceremony for the new freshmen the first week that school was canceled,” she revealed. “At that point, we didn’t know that school was going to be canceled for the rest of the year. Not just BETA, but I know that several clubs had activities planned; end-of-the-year things,” Shah said.

“For seniors, we’re missing a lot of things,” she said, proceeding to list a few. “We were supposed to be touring the eighth graders who would be coming to Veterans next year. We were supposed to have Senior Pancake Breakfast, where we all get to be out of class one morning and have breakfast together. We were supposed to sign each other’s yearbooks. We’re missing Senior Field Day, and this year, they were going to try to do something where we got to go back to our old elementary school and do a senior walk in the hallway in our caps and gowns. There’s just a lot that we’re missing out on,” she concluded.

Shah mentioned that once she enrolls in college, she plans to study economics and public health on her way to becoming a pre-med student. However, she hasn’t made up her mind where she will attend college, and with university campuses closed too, her decision making process will be a more challenging one. “This was the point where my family and I were hoping to be able to visit some colleges to help me make my decision,” she said, mentioning that her parents, Ojash and Archana Shah were scheduled to tour sites with her. “I’m thankful to have the virtual opportunity to look more into these colleges, but obviously, if we were able to actually be on campus, it would have made a difference.”

Shah said she now wonders if COVID-19 will affect when she can start her college career and the manner in which she’ll be able to attend her selected university. “I saw an article yesterday or the day before saying that some colleges are thinking that they may have to start off the year with virtual learning or even push [start dates] back altogether,” Shah said. “So I’m not really sure what’s going to happen, and it’s just kind of scary. I think that going to college in general can be a different experience and scary to some,” she pointed out, “but having to start that through virtual learning, or not having it at all, is even worse.”

Shah enjoys human interaction and hands-on learning, so she admitted that she’s not a fan of having to finish her senior year through virtual classes. “I really miss actually being in school and learning face-to-face from my teachers, but I know that the teachers are still putting in their best effort to make this transition easy and good for us.” Shah said that Google Classroom is the primary method of her virtual learning, but they also use Zoom, which allows her to be able to see her teachers and some of her classmates virtually while completing assignments.

In spite of her disappointments, Shah understands the seriousness of COVID-19, and giving the circumstances, she said she truly believes the stay-at-home mandates are necessary for the sake of the bigger picture. “It’s obviously frustrating to be stuck at home and to know that I’m losing certain memories or opportunities that come with being a high school senior,” Shah admitted, “but I do think that the wellbeing of the people in our community—especially the elders and other people at risk—is much more important than my thinking it’s my senior year and I deserve to have all these things.”

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