Senior Spring 2021

Last updated on June 10, 2021

Co-written with Reese H. ’21

May is here, and so begins the end of our seniors’ high school experience! This year was unpredictable and none of us (students, faculty, or families) knew how things would shake out by the spring. Seniors were worried that they may never return to school, see their classmates, and practice the senior traditions of senior assassin (this year called Darts of Love), prom, skip day, graduation, and more. Luckily because of vaccine distributions and Washington entering new phases of reopening, seniors who wanted to were able to participate in these events. 

Returning to campus for senior spring was interesting. It was bizarre to plunge back into school after being away for so long and to enter at such a busy, iconic time of year for seniors at Northwest. After a year of remote learning, a lot of us had developed schedules around these changes, and it was jarring to jump into a new everyday routine. For example, I (Eliza) had gotten used to working out at home each day during lunch, and would instead eat after my last remote class. When returning to campus, this was just one of the parts of my routine that adjusted. Beside the drastic personal changes that hybrid learning brought for each of us, there are overwhelming academic and social events happening in our grade at the moment. Academically, seniors are in the final push before graduating. This means final research projects, essays, exams, and things of that nature. There is definitely an air of stress and business within the senior class right now. However, we have also been able to enjoy some of the senior traditions that make the spring so iconic! Darts of Love, prom, and graduation are just three of the events that happen in the last few months of the year (two of them having already happened!). After a year of being isolated from our classmates, the senior class has definitely taken these opportunities to reconnect and explore friendships we may have lost, which has been a huge gift. 

Prom, which many seniors assumed would not be able to happen, occurred last Saturday. The event was a wonderful experience and allowed me to talk to people who I have not connected with in over a year. This event was a chance for us to come together as a graduating class, especially given that events such as the senior trip have been cancelled because of COVID. Now that prom is over and we are nearing the end of the school year, most of the senior class is already locked in and aware of their plans for next year. Amidst senioritis (which has taken a toll on many) and an overall draining past few months, it has been so interesting to converse with my classmates and hear what they plan to do after the summer. Many people are attending college or university both in and out of the country, and some are taking a gap year to work, travel, or spend quality time with family. Now that the college application process is complete, the feeling of anxiety brought on during conversations about college is no longer present. There has even been an Instagram account set up where seniors can post about their plans for next year! Although we will miss our peers when we all go our separate ways, it has been an unexpected treat to be able to once again see our classmates’ faces and begin returning to normality. 

At first, many seniors were dreading the idea of going back to in person classes because of the abrupt schedule change it would entail. It was nerve racking to come back to school and be around so many people after over a year of online school. However, we think the senior class would agree that the switch to in person was so worth it because we got to connect with friends and experience once again what it physically feels like to wander the Northwest halls.