“I have nothing to look forward to”
Colorado seniors reflect on missing their final months of college
Years in the future when Sara Higgins shows her kids pictures from her college days, the photo that will be missing is the one of her in a cap and gown.
Higgins will graduate from Metropolitan State University of Denver in May with a degree in biology, but she won’t walk across the stage at the Denver Coliseum to receive her diploma like so many Metro graduates before her.
“I saw a picture of a friend who graduated last year and I got sad,” she said.
“I won’t have those photos or that experience.”
Since the novel coronavirus started its march across the United States, colleges and universities have been forced to call off graduations, meaning there will be no “Pomp and Circumstance” marches on campuses this spring. Instead, universities are offering options such as virtual ceremonies in May, alternative dates or invitations to join graduations in the fall or even in 2021.
The stay-at-home and social distancing orders in Colorado also leave uncertainty about how seniors will celebrate. Graduation parties, senior formals, family dinners and celebratory trips are slipping out of reach, postponed until down the road if not canceled.
The absence of a specific date makes students uncertain of whether they will be able to attend a rescheduled ceremony.
“I think you can do it for high school,
but after college everyone leaves,” said Casey Smith, a senior at Colorado Mesa University studying criminal justice.
Her college offered students the option to attend a virtual commencement on May 16 or an in-person ceremony tentatively planned for Aug. 1. But Smith applied to law schools at the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Buffalo, and if accepted, driving back to Grand Junction for a three-hour ceremony feels low on the priority list.
“There’s a good possibility that I will be in another state,” she said. “If I wait for the in-person graduation, there’s still a chance I may not even get to do it.”
Devan Daugette spent five years at the University of Colorado Denver studying literature and secondary education.
“It was like hitting a milestone,” Daugette said. “I just feel like graduation is kind of an event, a place marker. I feel like all students should get to experience that.”
CU Denver canceled its spring commencement without saying whether a new date would be scheduled. Daugette wanted the day to be special because her academics have improved in college and she would have received honors that she didn’t get in high school. She also wanted to see her sister who lives in Boston and her aunt and uncle from California, whom she hasn’t seen since she graduated from high school.
She was also hoping to be part of the LGBTQ Student Resource Center’s Lavender Graduation, where each student gets a rainbow stole to wear at the commencement ceremony and a lavender plant.
Luis Estrada, who will earn an electrical engineering degree from MSU Denver, said it would mean a lot for his mother to see him walk at commencement. They moved to the United States when he was 7 years old from a tiny town in Chihuahua, Mexico, and he’s spent seven years working toward his degree.
His grandparents, who still live in Mexico, were supposed to attend too. MSU Denver’s graduation is postponed until later summer or early fall.
“When all this is over, I don’t really care when we walk,” Estrada said. “Just keep going. I think we’re gonna get through it.”
Aileen Alvarado-Marquez needs to finish a summer internship to complete her degree in human services and counseling, but job openings are scarce. She worries that the internship could be canceled, adding another semester to her college career — and the extra tuition.
“I found it hard to keep that motivation,” Alvarado-Marquez said. “I have nothing to look forward to.”
Since classes moved online, students feel like they left goodbyes unsaid and projects unfinished. Higgins was in the middle of her senior research project, working closely with a professor to study a craniofacial gene in zebrafish. All of the data and research remain in the lab on campus, which Higgins can no longer access.
“When I started my research, being close with a professor and being able to go to them was really important for me,” Higgins said.
Smith already decorated her graduation cap and ordered her dress for the senior formal.
Her graduation announcements sit on her kitchen table, sealed and waiting to be mailed or thrown out.
“My last week of class, I wanted to say goodbye to all of my professors and thank them for everything they do,” Smith said. “I wanted to leave my desk for the last time. I wanted to have lunch with my family. It all just feels very unfinished.”
“My last week of class, I wanted to say goodbye to all of my professors and thank them for everything they do. I wanted to leave my desk for the last time. I wanted to have lunch with my family. It all just feels very unfinished.”
Casey Smith, a senior at Colorado Mesa University