In mid-March of 2020, high school seniors across the nation went through the motions of their day, unaware that they would not attend class in their high school ever again. It’s a story we all know a little too well by now, and while it can be exhausting to continually bring up the pandemic, the high school class of 2020 has spent the past few months thinking about that time at least a little bit as they now look to college graduation.
After missing out on many graduation festivities and the last part of their senior year, students in UT’s class of 2024 have made the most of their time in college and have been soaking up each and every final moment.
When Gavin Buehring, a senior majoring in political science, finished high school in Goodlettsville, Tennessee, he still got to have a graduation ceremony. But instead of the way graduations traditionally work, Buehring said students were put in a room separate from their families, and groups of 15-20 students at a time would be taken to walk across the stage to accept their diplomas. He watched most of his peers graduate through a livestream.
Sandra Mansour, a senior studying psychology, and Amara Pappas, a senior studying arts entrepreneurship through the College Scholars program, both also had a high school graduation ceremony in 2020, but they were held on football fields.
Pappas said this was a better option than she expected since many people did not have a graduation at all, and hers was not originally scheduled to take place at her Knoxville high school — the switch meant she actually got to graduate at her high school, rather than at Thompson-Boling Arena, where Knox County Schools previously had graduations. For Mansour, though, who is from Murfreesboro, it didn’t have that same sentimental tie, as her high school didn’t have a football team, so they had to use someone else’s field.
“It was pretty anticlimactic because we couldn’t really celebrate with each other,” Mansour said. “It happened, and then it was over. No real celebrations occurred.”
While all three of these students did get to physically graduate from high school, not having March-May of their high school senior year had an impact that they still feel now. After a freshman year defined by Zoom classes and self-isolation, they all have become involved on campus throughout the past four years, partially in response to losing part of their senior year.
Buehring said this participation might be due to feeling a need to get as involved as possible in order to make friends after a short senior year and a quiet freshman year.
Buehring — who is starting his Ph.D. in political science at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, this fall — has been president of Kappa Alpha Pi, a coed pre-law and government fraternity, this past year and is also involved with the Baker School of Public Policy and Public Affairs. He joined several other organizations his freshman year but said that dwindling down his involvement as he reached the later years of college helped him to focus on what he is really passionate about.
“I think I overcompensated with clubs to try and meet people,” Buehring said. “So I think starting with COVID and starting in that time frame definitely kind of altered how I viewed college a little bit.”
Pappas, while reflecting on the impacts of the end of her senior year of high school, said she may have used her time in leadership positions in response to feeling out of control during the pandemic. Pappas has been involved in the Honors Leadership program, Chamber Singers, UT Singers and served as the president of Alpha Omicron Pi in 2023.
“I think coming into college and being isolated, we were all craving that sense of community and that sense of connection with people, and so I think we just took every opportunity we could to get involved,” Pappas said. “I mean, in a sense going off leadership, too, I think we lost a lot of control in the latter part of our high school year.
“And so maybe it’s a sense of, ‘I’m in control, like, I have a leadership position, and I have control over what I’m involved in and what’s happening.’”
Mansour, who was highly involved in high school, carried her same passion for getting involved in high school through to her college career, as she has been involved in Kappa Kappa Gamma, VolTeam and The Cross Greek Ministry.
She’s seen her later years of college, specifically senior year, look vastly different from her freshman year.
“Coming in as a freshman, I already didn’t want to be at UT, and all of my classes were online, so I was really struggling to make community,” Mansour said. “But as a senior, I feel like I have made connections as a student with friends and faculty that mean the world, and I wouldn’t have picked anywhere else to call my home over the past 4 years. It’s a big campus but feels so small now and I have enjoyed every nook and cranny.”
After using their time to get involved over the past four years, the three seniors spent the year looking forward to a graduation filled with more excitement and celebrations than their high school one in 2020.
When March of this year rolled around, however, each one of them had a fear: that something might happen to end this senior year, too. 2020 left them with a sense of anxiety that has been hard to shake.
“I definitely, thinking about it now, went into that month with a lot of fear and apprehension of, like, I can’t let myself get too excited about anything,” Pappas said. “And even though this is such an exciting time, and there are so many great plans ahead, I’m like, ‘I can’t get my hopes up for any of them because they might not happen.’”
This is a fear that has been widespread throughout the nation for the college class of 2024. For seniors at universities like Columbia, that fear has come true, as their commencement ceremony was canceled due to student demonstrations in support of Palestine. While students at UT have followed this movement in demonstrating, UT’s commencement ceremonies are still scheduled.
Now, as these seniors approach graduation day, they’re using their time to soak in all their last moments on campus. Pappas, who plans to work for Knoxville Opera over the summer, said she’s attending as many university-sponsored graduation events as possible, and she and her roommates are chipping away at a UT bucket list. Mansour is also doing as much as possible before starting her master’s in elementary education at UT, saying her fear of things ending too soon has propelled her to do so.
“I have tried to soak it in and say ‘yes’ to as many things as I can to make sure I get the full experience,” Mansour said.
As part of getting that full experience, each one of these graduates is looking forward to celebrating their graduations with no limit on the number of family and friends who can attend to celebrate them. With grad parties and celebrations and friends, they plan for this graduation to be a second chance at the one they imagined four years ago.
Senior Amara Pappas's 2020 high school graduation was held on the school's football field.
