Saying Goodbye to my Perfectly Planned Senior Year of College

The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men, and all that

The UNC Asheville campus, looking out toward Mount Pisgah from the steps of Ramsey Library. Photo: Ally Hibbitts.

When I began my last semester of college, I thought I had laid out the perfect plan of what was going to happen:

• I was going to work the camera for my final student film.
• I was going to finish my amazing internship at NEMAC.
• I was going to make a lot of great memories with my friends.

I was wrong.

After Spring Break, I never returned to campus.

My mom and I were out shopping, looking for my first post-college-graduation interview outfit, when I received an email that would turn my world upside down. The university had decided to move all classes online for the next two weeks due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. About a week later, it announced that classes would remain in the online format for the rest of the semester.

Turns out that my “perfect plan” wasn’t so perfect.

The first week of online classes was pure chaos. Assignments were added, removed, and/or changed at the last second. Groups had to figure out how to work together, online, to finish their projects. And everyone had to learn new and different online platforms.

We muddled through, though, somehow, and now “graduation” is upon us. Except of course there won’t be a graduation, at least not one held in May, with the spring flowers blooming around us, where I walk across the stage in a cap and gown and Chancellor Cable hands me a folder that we all pretend contains—but doesn’t—my diploma. I will get my diploma, though. It’ll come in the mail, just like a “normal” graduation.

With so many changes happening in my personal life and the world around me, I had to make a whole new plan:

• I am now working on a new screenplay.
• I am still able to finish my amazing internship with NEMAC.
• I’ve remained in contact with my friends…and we’ve even grown a little closer through all of this.

My friend Ally (left) and I, sleep-deprived and enjoying a nice 3 am yogurt, back when we were filming a short film. Photo: Katie Walker.

There have been some other good things that have come out of this sudden change. I, like many other people, have finally found the time to complete projects I’ve been putting off for a long time. My room has been reorganized and repainted. The dreaded hall closet has been cleaned out. I even have an official workspace in my house now!

My perfect senior year may not have been what I thought it would be—but it has definitely been one to remember!