12 FEATURE
PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE
COVID-19 pandemic impacts post high school endeavors BY EMILY HELMUTH co-editor-in-chief As the 2020-2021 school year comes to an end, next school year looms closer and closer in the distance. For seniors this means pursuing a career, college or something else, and for juniors this means senior year and all the post high school planning that comes with it. When looking back on this past school year, one word comes to mind: COVID-19. Even though the vaccine is available and the light at the end of the tunnel visible, the impacts of this pandemic will continue to affect society for years to come. According to internship sponsor Ginny Zega, the pandemic had a great impact on the internships students could take this year, particularly ones in the medical field. “A lot of businesses did not take our interns because of COVID-19. It affected a lot of our internship opportunities, mostly in the medical field. The hospitals and some of the nursing homes haven’t taken any of our students because they are closed to all visitors who don’t work there,” Zega said. “The only interns we’ve been able to have there are students that work at the hospital or nursing homes and no regular interns.” Zega added that the school was also more flexible with internship opportunities this year compared to years past. “This year we let students do other things, like landscaping. Usually I don’t let landscaping happen because they don’t work in the winter, but because we were so short on places I let students be with landscapers. Students were also able to just use their job as an internship,” Zega said. “This year changed a lot of our capabilities. We let people be interns at places that they won’t be able to intern at (in the future) and haven’t interned at (in the past).”
Outside of student internships, the pandemic even altered some students’ college decisions. College and career counselor Johanna Hess elaborates on this. “In terms of applications being submitted by students, we are still on track, so I don’t think (COVID-19) negatively impacted how many students are applying (to college). I think the biggest thing it’s impacting is where students are choosing to attend,” Hess said. “I think more students are choosing to stay closer to home or they’re choosing to spend a year at an institution that costs less and transfer.”
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I honestly have no clue what I want to do with my life and the pandemic has only made that fact a lot more obvious to me. senior Morgan Longo
Senior Gianna Fantin decided to switch universities for next school year when the NCAA created a new rule in light of the pandemic. “I was going to go to Saginaw Valley State to play softball, but the NCAA gave all players an extra year of eligibility (because of the pandemic),” Fantin said. “All of the seniors at that school took the extra year so I wouldn’t have been able to play softball. I changed my mind about school and I couldn’t be happier with my decision.” The pandemic had an impact on non athletes’ post high school plans as well, like senior Morgan Longo who opted to take a gap year next school year over going
to college. “I ended up graduating in early February by taking a bunch of credit recovery classes. My college plans had drastically shifted when we went into ‘red’ for the first time last March,” Longo said. “I honestly have no clue what I want to do with my life and the pandemic has only made that fact a lot more obvious to me.” Senior Chloe Miller adds that the pandemic has made it more difficult for her to save money. “It’s harder for me to work super often. I want to be able to save up a lot of money for school, and I eventually want to move out and live on my own, so COVID-19 has definitely made that more difficult,” Miller said. Hess notes some changes that occurred this year that may have affected students’ planning. “We didn’t have college representatives coming into the building, they were offering online visits. Attendance was pretty down on those. I think students are kind of Zoom-ed out so they weren’t really engaging with reps like they have in the past. We weren’t able to have our college fair either so that was a big one,” Hess said. “The other big change for this years’ class was test scores. Many schools were starting to go test optional before COVID-19, but once COVID-19 hit they kind of all went the test optional route because they knew students weren’t able to sit in on exams like they were in the past. That was a huge change in how students were applying.” Despite those students who did change their minds due to the pandemic, there are still some who have remained set on their original plans, such as senior Joshua Holbrook. “(I want) to join the Air Force, and join the Fire Protection, which is the Fire Department but for U.S. Air Bases. After
