Robbed of their final year, USU seniors share their stories

Freshman year at any college can be an intimidating experience. Students are in a new place surrounded by strangers, and still figuring out what to do with their lives. 

Sophomores might have a little more clarity. They’ve made some friends, picked a major and have started to feel familiar with the college campus and town. 

In junior year, college starts to feel like home. School might be a little stressful, but juniors have grown to love this life. They’re excited about the future and the path they’re on.  

With senior year approaching, students are generally excited to spend one more year living college life to the fullest, making valuable memories and really savoring the experience. That’s what senior year is all about, right? 

At Utah State University, that means cheering loudly in the stands at Maverick Stadium, going to dances and parties, singing The Scotsman — loudly and badly — in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum and celebrating years of hard work at graduation. 

This year seniors won’t be able to do that. At least not in the way they’ve been looking forward to.

USU seniors Jonah Hansen, Alyssa Hill, Kirsten Warr and Lydia Velazquez don’t expect to have a graduation. They don’t expect to have the same experiences as previous seniors. 

And they don’t expect finishing their degrees to feel satisfying.

Hansen, an economics major, said his education is entirely online this semester. He was originally expecting a great semester for his last year of college and made plans to ensure it would work out that way.

Hansen handpicked his professors for this semester, and he was excited. This semester was going to be about attending his classes and getting great one-on-one time with the professors, but he can’t do that now. The online classes, he said, are the biggest disappointment of the school year.

Just the other day, Hansen was trying to do his homework assignment. He watched a recorded lecture and couldn’t find the part where the professor talked about the knowledge he needed to answer the questions.

He tried clicking on different spots, in hopes of stopping on the right part of the video, with no luck. Hansen viewed the lecture twice before turning to Google to find the answer. He wished he had a way to ask the professor for help in real time, instead of needing to resort to asking the internet. 

“I was so angry I hadn’t learned what the professor thought he was teaching,” he said, “and I couldn’t get any help from him or the online class.”

Hansen said while he applauds what professors have tried to do while adjusting to this new way of teaching, they’re missing the mark. 

“It’s my last year and I feel like I’m being robbed of a full learning experience,” he said. 

Most seniors taking online classes this year feel similarly. 

Hill, an international studies major, is trying to focus on things she actually can control right now, but with all of her online classes and professors who aren’t exactly tech savvy, it’s a challenge. 

“The classes are not going great,” Hill said. “I have one professor who still has a hard time with recording videos or keeping up with Canvas because they didn’t use it at all before this whole thing.” 

Seniors wanted more. They wanted to communicate with their professors and classmates. They wanted to get more out of their last few college classes. 

They didn’t want online classes filled with busywork and technical difficulties. 

Velazquez, an English major, said all five of her classes are online this semester. She said she’s thankful for her great professors and classmates, but her coursework feels pointless. 

“I can confidently say that I have cried more this semester than I have during any other semester,” Velazquez said. “I can’t help but feel hopeless and like there is nothing to look forward to. Everyday feels like limbo.”

Recreation administration major Kirsten Warr is taking five online classes and one in-person class this semester. She’s trying to stay optimistic about virtual learning, but has still had her moments of frustration regarding her senior year. 

One of the measures USU has taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19 is to cancel spring break and add a week onto winter break. 

Warr and her husband had plans to travel to Hawaii over spring break. It was something they both had wanted to do before graduating. Now that the break has been cancelled, they’re still going to try and go, with the worry of working around their schoolwork and preparing for graduation. 

Hill said even though USU cancelled its spring break, she’s still planning on taking a week off in the spring. It’s her last one, and she feels she deserves it. 

“I think students still need that break from going nonstop with school work and their jobs. At least, I know I do,” Hill said. 

Hansen said he was devastated to hear that spring break was cancelled. 

“I had really big plans for spring break with a lot of my friends,” he said. “The fact that it was cancelled for a pretty much arbitrary reason made me really sad.”

Along with the cancellation of spring break, Hansen has lost other activities this year. He’s a member of Sigma Phi Epsilon and said the fraternity has cancelled event after event. No brotherhood retreat, no weekly get togethers and no ice cream socials. 

Events that may seem unimportant, but were still hard losses for the seniors who were expecting them and won’t get another chance to go to them. 

There’s also the Howl, USU’s Halloween party, and PoBev, a monthly on-campus poetry night. They were both modified to be online and meet social distance requirements, but Hansen said it’s just not the same.

Like many of her fellow seniors, Velazquez was planning on having more control over her last year. 

“I feel like I’m feigning control, but something happens and suddenly I feel like a little kid,” she said.

Velazquez originally had big plans for her last year at USU. She was going to go to concerts, to the Sundance Film Festival and the Treefort Music Fest, but those plans have crumbled. 

“I live for concerts, so not going to concerts and not having those experiences has been hard,” she said. “There have been modified concerts happening, but it doesn’t feel the same and I don’t feel entirely safe attending them.”

Hansen, Hill and Warr aren’t expecting a ceremony. It’s too risky, they said, and the cases are higher than they were when last year’s seniors lost their graduation ceremony. 

Just one more promised event stolen from these university seniors.  

“I’m not holding out for a graduation ceremony,” Velazquez said. “Considering how Utah is doing in terms of cases and how Logan is doing in terms of being cautious, I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

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@HarrisKarcin