With graduation right around the corner, third-years sit by as they lose all hope of getting a physical farewell, or any of the college experiences for that matter. DU Beat spoke to some of them in order to get an insight into their psyche and know the popular opinion that has been going around.
The pandemic has taken away a lot of things from us, but most of all, it has stolen away some of the most beautiful days of one’s life — a real chance at a college experience. With having completed a year, confined to the four walls of our room, we sit and wonder as our dreams, hopes, ambitions fade away into the lone.
Anushree Joshi, a third-year student at LSR says, “The greatest loss of finishing college online is the ability to sit and look my peers in the eyes as they tell me about their days and I tell them about mine. The anxiety of things ending, in any normal year, would be wrapped up in the hullabaloo of celebration — multiple farewells, graduation dinners, and the lasts of meals and outings.”
But there’s a pang of ineffable sadness now, in knowing that some of the teachers who have changed the way I look at life have never even seen my face in real life, or might not remember it. It’s a loss much less significant than what this world is experiencing right now in different ways, but it’s a loss incredibly personal and irreparable,” she added.
Another, 3rd-year History major Aanya Wig elaborated on her wishlist for the New Year’s this year, “I wished to go back to campus, I wish I could sit in class and attend a lecture, I wished I could sit in the sun in the front lawns, I wished to get another vada pao, I wished I could hear the chirpy voices in the corridor, I wished to walk on campus again, and I wished to spend a little more time with the wonderful women at college.”
How does one then even begin to grapple with such questions, then? During the past year, people have lost people, their incomes, and even their interest in anything and everything around. The thought of bidding goodbye to such spaces of liberalism and inclusivity to be out there in the ‘real world’ is frightening enough that now, we even have to deal with not being able to go back to college for that one last time: sit in those lush green lawns, or juggle between classes as you order that cup of ice tea or chilly cheese Maggi from the Nescafé and sit at your favourite spot which makes you feel home with people who have stayed with you during the past three years, even when everyone else left. How does one even begin to get closure?
I don’t think the idea of online classes was bad in itself because yes, it was the need of the hour, but like million other things, this idea was also not executed well. Not only the students, but the teachers also faced a lot of issues to get adjusted to this new normal. Not to mention how it has adversely affected the process of learning in itself,” expressed Somya Jain, an Economics major at LSR.
Shivani Dadhwal, a KNC student elaborated on the losses we have all faced as a collective,
Having spent 50% of the time at online college is sad, there are so many unfinished Nescafé ice teas, college gang trips, classes, fests, outfits to wear to college, impromptu plans, whacky canteen food combinations, conversations and jokes. Abruptly, one was made to pack it all up and just walk away.”
It’s okay to mourn, it’s okay to get disheartened or even feel at loss here, but it’s not okay to not gift yourself the right to celebrate your own graduation. You deserve this farewell (even if it’s online) more than anyone else and hold on to your memories, learnings, and celebrations for your tomorrow will find you much farther than where you are today.
Featured Image Credits: DU Updates
Annanya Chaturvedi
