BUFFALO, N.Y. — The COVID-19 pandemic impacted rites of passage for students who graduated high school during that time, like Anna Heinz.

“My entire senior year was hybrid,” said Heinz. “The first time that I saw half of my friends in a school setting was on graduation day.” 

What You Need To Know

  • This year, students who graduated high school during the COVID-19 pandemic are graduating college.
  • The pandemic had a major impact on the way students learn and the way educators teach. 
  • For some students, their college graduation will  be their first graduation ceremony. 

As Heinz and her peers prepare to graduate college, looking back on the last four years highlights the obstacles they overcame.

“It was really challenging delivery of the full curriculum during that time, but it had a disproportionate impact depending on the resources and supports that you had in your home,” said Nathan Daun-Barnett, associate dean for faculty and student affairs at Graduate School of Education for the University at Buffalo. 

“I think it had a really kind of detrimental effect on how everybody in my generation learns and works,” said Heinz. “I mean, it's something that nobody ever experienced before. And we were all thrown into it. Teachers, the entire school system and students.”

For many, the pandemic eliminated the possibility of a normal senior year of high school and caused learning loss for students of all grades. 

“We didn't get the senior breakfast that classes before got, so that was really kind of a letdown,” said Heinz.

But it also taught students valuable lessons they didn’t expect.

“I learned how to hold myself accountable because you're not walking into a classroom with a teacher that knows if you didn't do something you were supposed to,” said Hines. “It's baptism by fire.”

“I think they've become more aware of their own personal learning styles and their own strengths and weaknesses,” said Jeff Faunce, faculty fellow in the College of Education at Niagara University.  

Four years later, Heinz and other graduates are finally getting their rite of passage.

“They get to put on the cap and gown, they get to walk across the stage, they get to shake hands with folks, they get to take pictures. And so it seems like the students are appreciating that more,” said Faunce.

“I will never, ever take for granted being able to just interact with people on a human level, even in the most basic ways, like going up to somebody or paying for something at a coffee shop and being able to, look at somebody's entire face and smile at them and say, ‘thank you so much,’” Heinz said. “Just small things like that.”