Are you graduating this month and are feeling blue? You’re not alone. This semester, for me, started out great. I had all the teachers I liked, I was finally taking classes relating to my major, lectures didn’t seem boring, was making new friends. I felt like 2020 was the year everything came together. I was set to Graduate Spring 2020 with an Associates Degree in Public Relations/ Communications. And like many other students I was ecstatic to start working at my dream job.

As an international student, finding a job is already stressful for me because it takes a lot of paperwork for any company to hire us. I was on track to get my OPT which would authorize me to work in this country and had an incredible job offer for the position of a Communications Specialist. Life was good. And then COVID-19 happened..

In no time, the cases started going from hundreds to thousands to now millions. Social Distancing was enforced, and seeing people in masks was not weird anymore. Everything started closing, classes were moved online, going to the grocery store was the highlight of the week, hanging out with friends seemed like a distant memory, and to top it all of Graduation was moved online.  This graduation would’ve been the first time I ever participated in a Graduation ceremony. Back home, I never got to attend my own graduation ceremony because I gave my senior A level Exams privately, and so naturally my parents grew excited to finally see me in a graduation cap and gown. They booked their flights as soon as they found out i was due for graduation. However, due to cancelled flights they weren’t able to come visit.

To top that off my OPT and my dream job got delayed, and then it really hit me. This will be the new normal for many of us entering the workforce or transferring to four year institutions. We won’t get to experience our first day of school or work in person any more. We may not even get to meet our fellow classmates who are graduating with us for a long time. Despite all of this, it still gives me satisfaction to know that we are all in this together and that i am not alone in feeling the way I do. I am positive that will recover from this pandemic and create a new normal where nothing will be taken for granted, classes with our friends, evening walks with our siblings, dinners with our families, even a normal trip to the hair dressers. Hugs and kisses to our loved ones will be more meaningful, and we will all appreciate our parents and grand parents even more because we now know that the person who said one man can’t change the world was crazy because he clearly never saw what happens when one man eats an under cooked bat!