When choosing their future home and school, the class of 2020 had dreams of friendships, parties, and clubs; now, their college experience is through a screen. Kylie Murakami, a freshman at UH West O’ahu, college experience, “is entirely virtual, meaning I’m doing my work at home rather than in the usual college experience.”

      A few lucky students are attending colleges that are offering in-person classes. Lyrah Panarigan, a freshman at Arizona Christian University, classes, “are in person with the exception of two hybrid classes. My school is very small so we are able to accommodate [to] social distancing and masks.”

      Whereas Murakami and Anisia McCray, a freshman at Pikes Peak Community College in Colorado, are “taking online classes on Zoom and WebEx.”

    The difficulties in high school online classes are no different than college classes. Murakami describes how “…working from Zoom has made it difficult to create friendships. Given most teachers also don’t have prior experience working either Zoom or asynchronous, they… face their own set of technical issues.”

   The uncertainty of how the coronavirus will affect the job market is making some high school and college students rethink going to college. Though their future is uncertain, Moanalua alumni continue to strive for higher education. McCray believes “college is important …because [it is] what will help me grasp all of [the] things I need to be successful in my career. Getting my diploma will allow me to stand out apart from other people in my career [it will] teach me life lessons and how to be successful.”

    Student safety has become even more important this year to include an increased emphasis on social distancing, which is normally the opposite of what college students look forward to. “A lot of events are changed or cancelled because of the risks [of] spreading the virus, so being able to really connect with your fellow peers is a bit challenging,” said Panarigan.

     By the time the spread of the virus gets controlled Panarigan hopes “to [find] an internship somewhere in the journalism industry…in Arizona.”

   In the past months the 2020 alumni have gone through difficult times but continue to stay positive and want to remind their alma mater to “…to look ahead at the future rather than dwelling over…activities, which may be cancelled this year as it was for me, “said Murakami