A Message to the Class of 2020

Recently, I have been scrolling through my social media and couldn’t help but notice seeing a lot of high school and college graduation posts. I try to avoid this by taking an annual break from social media in May, but even after I come back from the hiatus there are still some graduation posts lingering around. To make things clear, I don’t have anything against seeing graduation photos and shout-out to the recent graduating class of 2025 by the way. However, let me remind you that five years ago a certain graduating class of 2020 didn’t get to experience that due to those events getting “blipped” by COVID. Since then, the pandemic has been unofficially declared “over” and a majority of society has seemed to move on from that time period. Some members of the Class of 2020 have gotten rescheduled in-person ceremonies, but others (like me) have not and most likely will not get an official celebration. Reflecting back on this, I feel like everyone in the Class of 2020 should have deserved an in-person ceremony after all we went through leading up to the pandemic. Instead, I feel like we have been forgotten and left in an era that no one wants to remember ever again. Therefore, I would like to take this time in this post to say a message to the (somewhat forgotten) Class of 2020.

      Dear Class of 2020,

I know it has been a while since we last all saw each other back in March 2020 before we were forced to stay at home and actually see each other through computer screens. 5 years ago, none of us knew that we would be going through an unprecedented event that would cost us the end of our senior year in college/high school which included graduation ceremonies. I know it was made up through virtual and drive-through ceremonies, but it just didn’t feel the same. Maybe there are some of you who had an actual in-person ceremony a couple years after, but the rest of us never got that and since then society has quickly moved on from the pandemic. Before I go any further, I just want to check in and see how you are all doing. I know that the pandemic was a really challenging time for everyone, but after that there were still a lot of challenges to follow. I know I have been through my fair share of those besides not getting an official graduation ceremony. I always take an annual social media hiatus in May not only because it is MHAM (Mental Health Awareness Month), but just so I can avoid seeing all the graduation posts in my feed and feel left out. However, even after coming back from my hiatus, I still tend to see some graduation posts lingering. And that is when I can’t help but wonder if they still remember us Class of 2020, aka the pandemic class that never got a true ceremony.

Now at this point, some of you make be asking why is it such a big deal to have an in-person ceremony even if that milestone has already passed for us. Well, to put in simple terms, graduation is a very important milestone for completing a higher level of education. It symbolizes all the hard work we went through just to complete either one or two degrees. I mean both high school and college are hard to get through. In high school you had to deal with a rigorous academic load along with balancing multiple extracurricular activities, and applying to colleges at the same time. College was a bit more challenging also dealing with a rigorous academic load, and basically trying to live on your own with a limited budget. Even after completing several years of education, we should’ve deserved a in-person graduation ceremony officially completing this journey. However, because of some global pandemic, that was cut short and we didn’t end up getting an official recognition with the diplomas, cap and gown, pomp and circumstance, you name it. Think of it as a major superhero movie like The Avengers where there is this big battle happening, and the Avengers end up succeeding. After the battle, some people celebrated and recognized the heroes for saving the day. Or the ending of Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope where the death star has been destroyed, and there is that scene were Luke Skywalker and Han Solo are celebrated for their heroic efforts. Imagine if those celebrations or recognitions never happened, which is exactly what happened to the Class of 2020. It is like as if we went through multiple battles in our years of education, and we don’t end up getting the celebration or recognition.

Even after we “graduated,” and the pandemic dissipated, we tried to move on in our adult lives by having jobs, trying to start our own family which created even more challenges. I mean that is how post-grad life is even if you don’t get an official recognition that you graduated. We never got special treatment for graduating during a pandemic when trying to apply and work in jobs. Instead, we are all just trying to navigate in our very complicated world which is not getting any easier. Take it from my personal experience where I went through being unemployed during COVID, then getting fired from a job and being unemployed again, and then having to go through different jobs along with dealing with personal issues. However, knowing what we learned from the pandemic and beyond, we shouldn’t let a canceled graduation ceremony stop us from being resilient. We can still have a voice and stand up for ourselves to make our communities a better place. Even after I got fired from my job, I try to put a positive spin on it by creating this blog and sharing my experiences, as well as my interests. (BTW, if you haven't already you can follow this blog on @pressure.shock. It may feel like the society has forgotten about the Class of 2020, but we can still leave our mark and achieve great things. Look, I know I have been ranting about the Class of 2020 not having a graduation ceremony of any sorts, but that doesn’t mean our lives end at that point. We still have other chapters in our lives to fulfill, and other milestones to achieve. Even if your school didn’t give you an in-person ceremony, you can still celebrate that achievement and make it valid yourself. Maybe someday if schools and universities come across this blog post, they can finally give this class a proper in-person ceremony (if they haven’t already). But for now, let’s use this time to make the most of our lives. Life is not controlled by a single timeline, so make the most of it even if it isn’t like anyone else’s.

To the Class of 2020, I know that last year of our education, whether it was high school or college, did not end like how it was supposed to. A lot of us are still trying to find that closure in that chapter due to in-person ceremonies being cancelled. I know it is hard to move on, but not everything happens for us at the same time. I just want you to know that you have worked hard to get to completing that higher level of education. Even after completing it, I commend you on continuing through life regardless of those cancelled pandemic plans. Trust me, I have not forgotten about you Class of 2020, and I want you to make sure no one else will. Most of all, I just hope you are taking care of yourselves because from the pandemic till now, the world hasn’t been treating us kindly. Therefore, if no one else didn’t say it, I will say to you a “belated” congratulations, and I sincerely apologize we did not get that formal ceremony. I apologize your senior year did not go as planned due to the pandemic. If I had alternate-reality powers to change all that, I really would. For now, go buy yourself some flowers, a cake, or even a drink for going through these hard times.