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Looking through the photos I took this year, I definitely feel very fortunate to be in the situation I am in. Obviously, the pandemic is not an ideal circumstance for anybody, but I have had lots of opportunities leading up to it, and my family has the capability of staying safe in a tolerable home environment.

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I think others can relate when I say that I did not really anticipate the pandemic to last as long as it will. Even when I read about how it would last for as long as a year, at the time, my mind just did not process what that really meant. I was expecting to move back to Maryland, and I was making plans to room with my friend on campus. All of those expectations fell through, of course. I think this has really shown me how precious the time we have at the moment is, even outside of the pandemic. It makes me wonder what my life would be like if I did not take a gap year and had a half normal freshman year. I do not think I would change my experience if I had the choice, though.

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I do worry about how my communities and the whole world will heal from this time. While things are looking up with the vaccine, I cannot help but think that something will go wrong and the situation will not clear up on schedule. This year has been wrought with terrible surprises, as we all know. It actually annoys me a bit that we attribute this bad luck to 2020, however. Things like racism are not new phenomenon, it has and will be an issue outside of 2020. I hope that constant change will still be prevalent past this year as well. In the end, the best I can do is try to help my community while achieving my personal goals.

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Having my first year of college online and across the globe was certainly not what I expected. Leading up to this year, I was very nervous about coming to college. I am fortunate that online school has not been a huge burden on me, and in a lot of ways, I am thankful that it turned out like this. I think having this virtual year has given me a chance to ease into college.

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I am also glad that I participated in the Scholars program along the way. I was worried at first because I wondered if I made a bad choice choosing Media, Self, and Society because I am not going into journalism. I found that there were plenty of people like me and the topics we go over are not as specific to that area as I expected. I also enjoy that my peers in this class are much more willing to engage with each other than in my other normal classes. There is a weird camera shyness that has overcome many of us in these virtual classes, so it is nice to speak to fellow students that chose to participate in this program much more willingly than the typical courses.

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