In the span of four short years, awkward freshmen become confident seniors and their lived moments turn into fond memories. 

Though it’s hard to keep track of everything a student’s experienced, learned, and, sometimes, tried to forget, as they approach the end of their high school careers, many seniors have taken time to reflect on all that has happened in the past few years: fears they’ve overcome, friends they’ve made, and, for this year’s senior class, all they’ve missed out on.

So let me take you, beautiful reader, on a trip down memory lane.

Now-seniors Anisha Prabhu, Mabel Tong, and Anna Garlicki all had the same fear going into their freshman year of high school (and they said it the same way, too): “Getting lost.” This was such a worry for Prabhu, that in order to overcome it, she found herself printing maps of the school—each one pointing her to a different class. 

“I, like, drew out my path and how I was gonna walk because I was so freaked out about this,” Prabhu said. 

Though her methods may seem outlandish to the average student, her fear certainly wasn’t. At the time, State High still functioned with two separate buildings: North and South. Luckily for the class of ‘22 and onwards, that issue has since been eradicated (along with the North building), though some sophomores still find themselves lost with no direction in the middle of the cafeteria when they’re already fifteen minutes late for AP World History. But that’s another story.

Though it is believed that freshmen tend to be afraid of the upperclassmen, intimidated, even, Prabhu and Garlicki did not add to that stereotype. The preseason for sports and other extracurriculars oftentimes leads to freshmen mingling with seniors even before they start their high school experience. For Prabhu and Garlicki, upperclassmen were simply other students. 

“They were my friends,” said Prabhu.

The one thing that can be said for certain is that 2020-2021 has not been the senior year any of these three students were hoping for. 

Garlicki smiled as she took a moment to reflect, then said, “This is not what I expected.” She continued, “I was expecting being able to go to school every day, and I would be able to talk to my friends up close, I would be able to drive, like, pick up my buddies and drive to school together. I was expecting to not have to wear a mask…I was expecting to be able to hug my buddies, you know?” 

Garlicki was not asking for much. In any other year, each of these things would be overlooked, underappreciated. Despite  the inability to do all these things she and many others were hoping for, Garlicki ended on a note more understanding than would be expected, and without hesitation: 

“It’s not what I expected, but I think we’ve adapted to this situation well…I understand the importance of all the different precautions we have.”

Reminiscing on all that has happened, and all that could have been is not an easy task. While nobody really knows what the future looks like, we know that the class of ‘21 will face whatever path they take with a near-unprecedented level of resilience and strength.