Matt Pramas woke up in Gloucester, Massachusetts, on May 10, the day of his graduation from St. Michael’s College, to discover his mother had decorated the house with balloons and streamers in his school colors, purple and gold.
Rather than walk across a stage on campus in Colchester to receive his diploma, Pramas gathered with his parents and sister to watch a virtual graduation recording on YouTube.
More than 300 miles away in New Jersey, Kyle Kowalski and his family watched the same commencement, which included speeches from administrators, faculty and students. In total, nearly 3,000 people tuned into the broadcast.
“My mom tried to make the most of it, so she was getting all the decorations together, she got a brunch platter for us, we popped champagne,” Kowalski said. “Whenever you pop a champagne bottle, you know it’s a special occasion.”
Still, Kowalski said he could not shake the feeling of separation from his own graduation.
With group gatherings limited to 10 people or less, the Vermont Agency of Education has recommended that schools “plan creatively” around how to celebrate graduation without the ceremonies that traditionally mark the occasion. As high schools and colleges across the state are grappling with how to best honor the class of 2020, many are organizing digital celebrations while postponing in-person celebrations to a later date or canceling them altogether. Meanwhile, students are searching for their own way to conclude this chapter of their lives, and they are doing so from home.
“What I’m really missing is that moment of closure,” Kowalski said. “That moment where it’s like I’ve had my time here, this is where it all happened and now I’m ready to move on with life.”
For college seniors living on campuses that shut down due to Covid-19, part of that lack of closure stemmed from the hasty goodbyes that occured in mid-March.
“People left in the middle of the night, people had nowhere to put their stuff, we were being kicked out of our rooms. There was a complete emotional breakdown,” said Jack Litowitz, a senior at Middlebury College. “There was no catharsis. People didn’t get to stand up there and say I worked my ass off for four years, I changed as a person, I met this incredible array of people and built these relationships that will last a lifetime. We just left.”
Middlebury is also planning to host a virtual graduation celebration in place of its normal commencement on May 24, and hoping to hold an in-person ceremony at a later date.
In addition to missing graduation ceremonies, many in the class of 2020 are most sad to miss end-of-the-year traditions at their institutions.
Kathryn Fagan, a senior at the University of Vermont, said she had long looked forward to participating in the school’s senior week.
“I worked for commencement through university event services for the past three years and that’s been such a big part of celebrating my friends who have graduated in the past, and so not being able to do that myself has been really disappointing,” she said. “We usually do a senior brunch, a cook out, a bowling night and the sunset cruises.”
UVM is organizing a virtual senior week this year in which seniors post memories and photos from their time in college with the chance to win prizes, but Fagan said she is still disappointed that she is missing out on making one last week of memories with her friends.
As a member of Middlebury College’s Senior Committee this year, Litowitz was part of planning senior week before it was canceled. He said that Middlebury’s traditions include a day at Lake Dunmore, food trucks and field day games, a barbeque and the Last Chance Dance the night before commencement.
“I feel like we were kind of stripped away from our last semester and that is when seniors tend to want to do things like a senior year bucket list,” said Abla Laallam, also a senior at Middlebury. Laallam said she is the most sad to miss all her final dance performances on campus.
Kendra Ross, who is graduating from Castleton University this year, said she had been looking forward to participating in the school’s candle lighting senior ceremony.
“When you are a freshman you get a candle and I ended up keeping my candle so I could use it for this,” she said. “You walk up the path through the alumni gates and you’re welcomed as a Spartan and then four years later you walk back out as an alum.”
Castleton has announced it will postpone this year’s commencement until June 2021.
High school seniors are facing their own series of disappointing losses from prom to senior skip day. Klara Martone of Burlington High School said she was saddest to miss out on her last season on the varsity ultimate Frisbee team, which she was supposed to captain this year.
“I think it’s a pretty big letdown to not have your senior year which is this thing that is kind of hyped up all through high school,” Martone said. “It is a big deal. The people who get to say it’s just your senior year, they got a senior year.”
Many also expressed their sadness that they would not be able to celebrate their academic achievements with friends and family in attendance. Sam Donnelly, a senior at UVM, said he has a Zoom call planned for the day he was supposed to graduate.
“It’s less about me and more about my family being able to be there. I know my parents and my grandparents were especially looking forward to being at the ceremony and spending time together,” he said. “Whether it’s high school or college, this should be a time of celebration and to have that milestone interrupted can be pretty darn tough on a lot of people.”
Laallam, who is a first generation college student, said it was hard to lose out on the chance to celebrate with her family.
“For me, the ceremony was an official kind of way to celebrate that achievement because it is pretty big to be the first one in your family to go to college and it’s something that I’ve been talking about and dreaming about for the past four years,” she said. “That ceremony was the culmination of all that.”
Still, Laallam said that the lack of a commencement does not take away her achievement or the achievement of other first-generation students receiving degrees this year.
“You might not get to wear the cap and gown and get to walk with the rest of your friends but you have the diploma to show that you beat the odds and did this huge thing,” she said.
With commencement canceled or online, many graduates are turning their energies to what comes next, whether that is starting college or graduate school in the fall or trying to find a job during the economic uncertainty brought about by a global pandemic. Despite the uncertainty, several members of the class of 2020 in Vermont said they felt lucky to be in the position they are in.
“I am disappointed but I am lucky that ‘disappointed’ is the only thing I have to deal with,” said Sabin Hart, a senior at Burlington High School. “I’m not out of a job, I’m still going to college, nothing about my actual life has been affected, it’s just stuff I would have enjoyed.”
Laallam said that her class is still worth celebrating, even without the chance to attend a formal graduation.
“I don’t want this to define the whole class of 2020. We are more than just the pandemic class. We still graduated and we’re still doing all these great things,” she said. “And I think that’s really cool. Even when hardships come at you, you still try to make the most of it in any way you can.”
