About this collection: 4 years in the past, Chalkbeat reporters documented the tales of high-school freshmen experiencing a essential yr via Zoom calls and from behind masks. These college students, who skilled freshman yr at a distance, are actually graduating seniors. How did the pandemic form their highschool lives? How did their expectations for these formative 4 years play out? We caught up with these members of the Class of 2024 to seek out out.
Casandra Sotelo-Rivera was making an attempt her finest to savor her previous couple of weeks of highschool in Denver. It’s a lesson she stated she realized throughout the lengthy days of on-line studying.
“For me, a superb factor that got here from it was to understand the time that I’m given,” Sotelo-Rivera stated throughout a latest lunch interval at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Early Faculty.
“When COVID occurred, nobody was anticipating it to tug out for so long as it did. So when it did, your entire life was placed on pause.”
Sotelo-Rivera was a shy ninth grader within the 2020-21 faculty yr, a part of a cohort of hundreds of thousands of American college students who spent a essential yr of their lives in distant studying. She’s grown into an engaged member of her faculty group.
After commencement, she’s headed to Colorado State College in Fort Collins, the primary individual in her household to depart residence for faculty. As she prepares to stroll throughout the commencement stage, she stated she carries along with her various pandemic classes that formed her as a scholar and an individual.
Sotelo-Rivera thrived in distant studying in some methods. Taking part in school discussions was simpler as an avatar on a video name or a reputation within the chat field than it had been as an in-person scholar whose classmates’ heads would swivel towards her when she spoke. The technological anonymity allowed her to take educational and inventive dangers.
It additionally taught her the significance of advocating for herself.
“In on-line studying, it was the primary time I didn’t have somebody sitting there and strolling me via all the pieces,” the 18-year-old stated. “It taught me the way to train myself. Additionally as a result of we weren’t in individual, it taught me the significance of speaking and reaching out to my academics if I wanted one thing. And that’s one thing I used to be not good at earlier than.”
However there have been downsides, too. When faculty buildings shut down within the spring of her eighth grade yr, Sotelo-Rivera stated she stopped speaking to a lot of her mates.
“They stated, ‘I assumed you have been mad at us,’” she recalled. “I’d go hours or days with out speaking to them. I used to be so caught up in my very own world.”
Though her faculty constructing reopened within the second semester of her ninth grade yr, Sotelo-Rivera selected to remain on-line. She didn’t step foot inside a classroom till tenth grade — and even then, college students have been required to put on masks and social distance. As the varsity yr progressed and the COVID restrictions eased, Sotelo-Rivera stated “it was the primary time seeing a few of these children’ faces, and it was bizarre making an attempt to get used to it.”
“Truthfully the one factor I struggled with balancing was making an attempt to do all my extracurriculars and handle my friendships whereas sustaining good grades,” she stated. “I needed to get used to seeing my mates every single day. … It’s one thing you didn’t know you missed till you had it once more.”
Sotelo-Rivera is a scholar ambassador on her faculty’s employees governing board, which she stated discusses points starting from latest constructing renovations to the way to improve scholar attendance. She’s additionally on the senior planning committee, which helped plan her faculty’s promenade on the Denver Aquarium and an end-of-year senior BBQ.
As a result of she’s a scholar chief, Sotelo-Rivera stated a faculty counselor approached her about beginning a meals and clothes financial institution. Her faculty, like many in Denver, has enrolled an inflow of latest college students from South America this yr. Now, on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, college students and households in want can take residence donated meals and clothes, she stated.
Sotelo-Rivera additionally helps lead the out of doors membership, which works with a Denver-based nonprofit to take college students on excursions resembling mountain climbing and mountaineering. Her favourite journey was to the Nationwide Eagle Repository in Commerce Metropolis, which distributes eagle feathers to Native American tribes to make use of for non secular and cultural functions.
She plans to main in fish, wildlife, and conservation biology at Colorado State College subsequent yr. A TikTok she noticed of a wildlife biologist conducting a analysis mission on gorillas helped encourage her, she stated. Her older sister did two years of faculty, however Sotelo-Rivera would be the first in her household to attend a four-year college and dwell on a campus greater than an hour away.
To assist ease the transition, Sotelo-Rivera is ready to take part in a summer season program for first-generation college students. She’ll dwell in a dorm, take lessons, and attend necessary examine halls. Her move-in date is June 9, simply 10 days after her highschool commencement.
“Truthfully, as a lot as I’m scared, I do know it’s the fitting factor to do,” she stated.
Though Sotelo-Rivera stated she’d nonetheless describe herself as a bit shy, her confidence has grown within the 4 years since she was a freshman who all the time stored her digicam off throughout class.
“I see a distinction in my mentality: If nobody else goes to do it, you’ll be the one to do it.”
Melanie Asmar is the bureau chief for Chalkbeat Colorado. Contact Melanie at masmar@chalkbeat.org.
