From the very first days of school their freshman year, this year’s graduating class has undergone massive changes throughout their time here at Prep. It’s hard to believe that four years ago, the class of ‘24 was not able to attend school in person for the first year of their high school careers. This meant that they didn’t truly meet their classmates in person until second semester as hybrid school started at that time, and even then, not everyone was at school. When asked about their freshman year experiences Anna Lauinger ‘24 and Libby Smith ‘24, said that there were many pros and cons of COVID’s effect on their freshman year.
As school was online via Zoom, there was not much opportunity to talk and meet new people, a scary reality many students entering high school faced during the pandemic. For Smith, she found it very difficult to branch out and meet other people during online school as it was hard to “have one on one time or even somewhat normal interactions with classmates without being awkward in a breakout room or sitting there in silence with screens pointed at the ceilings and muted microphones”. Lauinger also experienced similar Zoom classroom environments, and she was able to get connected to many of her classmates through various other social media platforms.
Though meeting in person was hard, Lauinger and her friends were able to have group Zoom meetings almost every night, where they would ‘talk for hours’ after remote school. Though they found creative ways to meet new people both Smith and Lauinger, as well as the rest of the class of ‘24, didn’t meet their full class until the last day of freshman year. This was the first time all Prep students were allowed to come to school.
For many students, online school provided challenges, as asking questions and connecting with teachers was much more difficult without being in a live classroom. When Lauinger was finally able to attend school in person, even though it was only with 25% of her classmates, she described it as being, “Easier for me to focus as I had less distractions and could connect with my teacher’s way more easily”.
Being on a computer instead of in a classroom not just had a different learning environment, but social dynamics massively changed as well. Smith looks back and says the biggest thing she missed was, “The small moments in class where you are able to laugh with someone new and experience spontaneous conversations with your classmates.” When school was finally partially in-person divided up into cohorts, Lauinger was ecstatic to finally experience what going to Prep was like. But even with all the excitement, Smith described herself as also being filled with nerves, as she didn’t know what to expect as she had never met or interacted normally with most of her classmates until this point.
Though this years senior class had a very different beginning of their high school journeys, Lauinger believes that this setback, “Has made my grade so much closer, because everyone was so eager to finally be able to do things in a big group, as we had been separated for so long and wanted to make up for the lost time!” Contrastingly Smith views COVID as having largely separated their grade as many groups that had formed during early days of online school stayed the same even when school began in person.
Both Smith and Lauinger agree that junior and senior year were the two years where their grade bonded the most, as this was when everything was back to normal in regards to COVID. Though COVID was a maze to navigate for this year’s senior class, they were able to overcome the challenges the pandemic presented them all together.
