By Meredith Haas ’24, editor-in-chief

To say it has been a long four years for LVC’s class of 2024 would be an understatement.

Most of us were ready to leave high school behind, eager to start our college journeys. Yet our college careers didn’t quite start how our high school senior selves envisioned.

In fall 2020, we were greeted by a barren campus, one where only half the student body was allowed to move back on time. Students knew there would be endless health and safety guidelines, but we were excited, nonetheless.

The start of our college experience was characterized by mask-wearing, social distancing and filling out a daily symptom tracker to ensure we could go to class.

We followed arrows on the floors of the hallways and double-sanitized our hands. Emails were checked constantly, begging to not receive an email that we’ve been contact-traced or that an additional policy had gone into effect.

We sat outside just to get some time together. We wore masks in each other’s rooms and ate at dining hall tables separated with plastic dividers. Students chose to pass the time by scrolling endlessly on Tik Tok and sharing codes to Among Us games.

Yet all of the precautions in place for us proved not to be enough. The Dutchmen were sent home – twice – when COVID numbers got too high, forcing us to pack up our rooms and take courses via Zoom.

Nothing about our first two years of college was normal, but it was all we knew.

It wasn’t until the fall of 2022 that we removed our masks and truly saw each other’s faces. We ditched the Zoom app for in-person classes, began crowding in the dining hall and finally truly felt like we were college students.

Even though I was so frustrated with the situation in the moment, I can’t help but look back and feel grateful that I had even two years of normalcy as a Dutchman. While I surely didn’t have the ‘authentic’ college experiences my younger self dreamed of, there was so much to be learned from the cards we were dealt.

Yet despite the adversity we faced throughout our college journey, those days feel like forever ago.

Come May 11, we will finally make our way across the stage – this time in front of a full audience – where we will be handed our diploma instead of picking it up off a lousy table.

So, congratulations to LVC’s class of 2024! Our hard work, determination and perseverance through these unprecedented times has undoubtedly paid off.