For the ‘Covid Class’ of 2024, pandemic taught life lessons in perseverance, perspective
JOLIET, Ill. — The graduating class of 2024 will likely never take normalcy for granted.
The seniors earning diplomas this spring were freshman four years ago when the world changed and they were forced into online learning. And now many of them are using their pandemic experience to build their futures.
“I think they’ve had a very unique experience because they didn’t get the true high school experience until they were actually sophomores,” said Joliet Township High School District 204 Supt. Dr. Karla Guseman, who started the job in 2020 along with the now-graduating seniors.
There was no socializing in hallways. There were no in-person study groups. Remote learning, social distancing and masking — even in sports — became a part of the school experience. Academic challenges were compounded by social stresses.
“Freshman year was definitely an experience, going to school in my bedroom. Everyone’s cameras were off on Zoom. You didn’t see anyone. You just saw people’s names on a screen,” Joliet Central graduate Emily Smith recalled. “It impacted all of us, not being able to make new friends.”
Sophomore year brought a return to classes, albeit with restrictions and limitations. And for Guseman, that meant a lot of tough decisions on campuses that each have roughly 3,400 students.
“And a lot of criticism, to be quite honest. There was never a decision you could make that was going to be what everybody thought was the right decision,” she said.
In the days before the availability of vaccines, when hospitals were full, the sight of nurses caring for the sick left a lasting impact on Smith. She will attend Illinois State University as a nursing student.
“Watching TV and seeing everything nurses were doing inspired me completely to want to be like them, follow in their footsteps and make a difference,” she said.
The graduating class is filled with students who learned a lot about themselves and can teach the rest of us about perseverance and perspective.
“We made it through Covid. We can make it through anything,” Smith said. “I think we are just able to adapt to anything that is going to be thrown at us in the future.”
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