By: Alicia Merritt, grade 12 at G. Ray Bodley High School
Majority of young kids dream of growing up, moving on to high school, and graduating. I, myself had that same dream, of one day maturing and reaching that milestone of earning my high school diploma and furthering my education. Growing up with an older brother who achieved this milestone and witnessing his graduation ceremony made that achievement much more appealing. The desire to keep my grades high, participate in groups, and get everything i needed completed to be able to graduate was prominent in selecting my course load each semester.
My path to graduation was difficult, being a straight A student, maintaining a high honor roll average, a very high and almost perfect GPA, as well as participating in my schools National Honor Society, the school news program, and playing two sports. Although my path was difficult, I had my dreams of graduation just about completed. Starting my senior year all I could focus on was finally achieving that milestone and completing my high school education. Like most seniors I was looking forward to the days like senior skip day, the senior trip, our senior dinner dance, celebrating our countdown to graduation, receiving my cap and gown, and walking across that stage with some of my closest friends and classmates. Finally being able to say that I am a high school graduate and I would be attending college in the fall.
When hearing about COVID-19 it worried me, but I did not think that this virus would change my path to graduation this drastically. I had never pictured that school days would end, trips and sports seasons in whole would be canceled, and that graduation may not happen for the class of 2020. With having been in college courses since early on in my high school career the change from in school to online learning did not affect me as much as other classmates. I have always been extremely responsible with meeting deadlines, and being proactive with my learning. Most of my courses were already online, the change I had to make was balancing my time to work on each class as soon enough all of my classes would be online.
The biggest difficulty I had reached was realizing that although I had completed my final season as a basketball player, I would not be able to complete my final season as a softball player. With dreams of furthering my athletic career in college as a softball player the difficulty of losing an entire season, especially my final season which most see as their ability to leave everything they have on that field and as one last hoorah, this realization was extremely difficult to me. Not being able to have my last games with my closest teammates, the recognition of our senior night, and the chance to say goodbye to my coaches left me saddened.
Although school is closed and many seniors are jumping with joy at not having to go back, there are also many just like me. The seniors that although we did not always enjoy school days, or getting up early consistently, having to work hard on assignments, and taking tests, we still wanted that chance to say goodbye to our classmates, and our teachers. With being seniors from G Ray Bodley, we are losing the chance to get on those busses, going to see our elementary schools and junior high school to show those teachers that helped us grow, that we have accomplished our milestone. That we have achieved our high school diploma as well as our education. We are losing the chance to see the proud looks of those adults that influenced us dramatically in our journey. The athletes are losing their chance to finish their seasons with their teammates and coaches that they built extremely close bonds with. To those that will not be furthering their careers in college, both athletic and academic, they are losing the ability to have that final goodbye, as well as their walk across that stage.
The message I want to display with this article is to all of the underclassmen is to not leave anything behind. To the athletes, play every season as if it is your senior year, to the non athletes, join the group, go on all trips, and especially to those that do not believe they will be attending college, do anything you can to graduate, do not miss out on your ceremonies. To the kids who do not care if they graduate, you still have the opportunity to, you can have your ceremony, to accomplish something great, have a brighter future, you just have to push through and not give up, because you have another chance, we might not have the chance to walk that stage and receive the recognition of our hard work and dedication.
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