Through A Senior’s Eyes: The Class of 2021

by: Ajla Turnadzic 
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While the class of 2021 were just juniors when we found out about COVID-19, no one really thought it would affect our senior year. However, when our senior year did begin, everything began to change. 

The hybrid model caused most seniors to just want to stay home. While on the other hand, a few of them stuck to hybrid this entire year. 

I got to speak to senior Lejla Guster, who has learned in the hybrid model for the whole year. While she said she was in the Wethersfield Public Schools her whole life, she never felt like a year was more different. For some seniors, it was a very “off” year and a year that caused them to lack motivation. 

March 13 2020  is when it was announced that we were going into quarantine. This was announced via email by Superintendent Micheal Emmett. I asked Guster on how she felt on that day, “It was such a weird day, I remember waking up and I was excited because I was thinking that having a couple days off will be great. I didn’t think much of it.” The two week quarantine quickly turned    into four months of remote learning and another almost eight months in the hybrid model.

As said, most seniors were sick of going back and forth to school and online. This caused a ton of them to just stay online. However, for some that were fully online, it caused them to struggle with participation, studying, homework, etc. It was a hard adjustment because all of us were raised in an environment where all of our schooling was done in person. 


We were all 7th graders when we first got our “own” chromebooks but we were 9th graders when we got to actually bring them home. Guster did stay hybrid throughout the year and said, “I would stay home sometimes just because I didn’t want to be alone in class. However, when I was in class with 1 or 2 people, it was still nice because I was able to work better.” 

The whole year felt like a blur. Some may say, the virus ‘stole’ their senior year of high school and the events that were supposed to be held. Guster had said “We missed out on the pep rally which is what us as seniors were looking forward to. When you're a freshman or a sophomore, it doesn’t really matter to you”.  This is the year that was supposed to be one to remember. 

Now that thankfully we are coming to a full re-opening that is full time in school or full time online, this will cause us to all reconnect.  This will cause the seniors to see each  other one more time, those could be the last few conversations we ever have with our peers, classmates, and friends. 

I asked Guster for her opinion regarding her input on seniors who choose not to come back and she had said, “High school is once in a lifetime experience and you will never be able to experience it again”.

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