The Unexpected Turn of Senior Year

In my senior year of high school, one of the biggest things everyone stresses about is college. The big responsibility of deciding what you want to study, where you want to study at and the application process. It is a whole new experience having your future in your hands and preparing yourself for the next big step of your life. I decided I wanted to go to school for Physical Therapy Assistant. The next step, where? Through searching for schools, I soon realized there were not many colleges in Maine that offered my program, so my goal soon became finding a college out of state. After searching through college after college, looking at location, price, and amenities for incoming freshmen, I found a handful of out of state colleges I was interested in. I also found one in Maine, the University of Maine at Presque Isle. UMPI was going to be my backup sense at the time I wanted to go out of state. However, after looking more into UMPI it became more and more appealing to me. As I was looking at pictures of the campus I could really picture myself there. I went through the application process for UMPI and even scheduled a visit. In the meantime, I discovered one of my best friends had also been looking into UMPI, and even for the same program! We were beyond ecstatic that we could be on the same campus next year, and even sit in the same lecture rooms. The day of my tour came and it was becoming very real. My parents and I drove the 4 hours it took to get to Presque Isle. the drive was filled with miles of trees, beautiful mountain views and hours of me realizing this would be my reality in a short few months. As soon as we arrived on campus, it just felt right. The welcoming staff greeted me by name, I got my own reserved parking spot and my name even appeared on their admissions office T.V. It really felt like they cared about me as a person, and not just a number. As the tour went on, I discovered it had everything I wanted; and even things I didn’t know I wanted. At the end of the tour I met with an admissions officer and he even handed me my acceptance letter! I looked at my mom in awe. Everything just seemed to freeze as I took it all in. 

“This is where I want to be,” I told both my parents as they grew smiles that lit up their eyes.

“It just feels right, it feels like I belong and they want me here,” I explained to my mom as I gazed out the window at the campus as we drove off. After that day, it felt complete and it became real to me. 

Fast forward a couple of months. I and three of my friends have all been accepted to UMPI and at least 2 of us, myself included, have decided that we are going there for sure. All 4 of us make plans to go to accepted students’ day together and we were all overjoyed. We made plans to go up the night before and stay in the same hotel so we could spend the night swimming together and just enjoying the time we had together as seniors. However, there was an outbreak of a very serious virus in the world, the CoronaVirus. In the early stages of the virus, it was not in America yet so it was not a big concern for us at the time. We knew about it, we heard about it on the news but daily life carried on for us. Then it came to the US and started to become real as it crept closer and closer to Maine, but we still carried on with our normal lives. Until it reached Maine. People started panicking, preparing to hunker down in their homes and there were even cases of Corona pretty close to home. It became the talk of the day every day. Places started closing and events started to be canceled. At work one night a coworker said all the UMaine schools were sending their students home for the second semester. I thought, what about accepted students day? A few days later I received an email, there would no longer be an accepted students day. I again felt frozen in the moment trying to comprehend everything that was happening. After months of preparing for this day, and being overjoyed that I got to share it with my friends. All of a sudden just gone. The way I felt was the way Kevin felt in Home Alone. I felt lost as everything I had prepared for in my Senior year was being canceled, even school for two weeks. When accepted student day was canceled I felt the way Kevin did when his family went on vacation without him. I felt like I had so much missed opportunity for senior year. It is a very stressful time for all of us seniors as we wonder what will happen in the next few months with prom, our senior trip, and graduation. All I can say is that this was a very unexpected outcome of my senior year.

Photo by jimmywayne on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND