As mother’s day came and went this past weekend, so did the day many students have been looking forward to for years: graduation day.
Sadness, nostalgia, optimism and uncertainty are just a few of the feelings new UNC graduates are experiencing as what would have been their commencement day passes them by.
While the university put on a virtual ceremony complete with student performances and key alumni speakers, some students feel that no matter what the university did, it can’t make up for all the traditional senior rites of passage they never got to experience.
Brooke Wheeler just graduated with a B.A. in Exercise and Sports Science and a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies with a medicine and psychology concentration. She said it still doesn’t feel real that her time as an undergrad is finally over.
“It’s such a weird feeling and none of us know what the heck is going to go on and so we’re all just sitting here like ‘what next?,'” Wheeler said.
Wheeler’s graduation day was not what she anticipated. She and a friend had a “socially-distanced picnic” with take-out Med Deli and a lot of reminiscing on their time in undergrad.
With her plans for grad parties and grad trips cancelled, and no traditional senior bell tower climb in sight, Wheeler finds herself lacking the closure she craves.
“I feel like I never really got my last class because even though I did sit in on it, I didn’t realize it was my last one,” Wheeler said “It was right before spring break – I was texting my friends during my last stats class making plans and that was the last time I would ever sit in a classroom at UNC.”
Brooke Wheeler at her socially-distanced picnic.
While Wheeler has a summer job lined up before she starts PA school in the fall, she knows not everyone is as lucky.
“A lot of my friends have just graduated and they don’t have any job offers or interviews or they’ve had revoked acceptances because of all of this,” Wheeler said. “So I know that’s really hard on them as well.”
Reina Kinnaly is a first generation college graduate with a degree in Exercise and Sports Science. She said in lieu of her departmental ceremony, her family and boyfriend put together a small celebration at her house.
“May 8 is when I was supposed to actually walk across the stage for the exercise and sports science ceremony so I was like ‘I’m going to be sad that day so can you cook my favorite food or something’ and then they kind of twisted it and turned it into a little grad party for me,” Kinnaly said.
But even with a surprise celebration, Kinnaly is having a hard time wrapping her head around all the immediate changes, especially as her dream of walking across that stage and having a clear representation of all her hard work was taken away due to the pandemic.
“The thing that I really, really want is for the individual departments to actually call my name and let me walk across the stage,” Kinnaly said. “That’s something that I’ve looked forward to and that’s something that’s really, really important to me. That’s just something that I kept imagining all year and it hurts that I never got that.”
Reina Kinnaly in front of her sign at her surprise grad party.
Ryan Herron is a California native with new B.A. in Economics and a B.S. in Business Administration. Herron said even though an official commencement ceremony couldn’t be held, he and his friends were still determined to commemorate the day.
“What we ended up doing is we printed out little sheets of paper and walked around our neighborhood and the night before, Saturday night, we put each of these slips of paper on people’s doorsteps,” Herron said. “These papers said that the following morning, on what would have been our graduation day, a group of us would be walking through the neighborhood in a small mini parade and we would love if you would come out and celebrate us and cheer us on.”
The morning of, Herron and his friends took to the streets in their caps and gowns and paraded through the neighborhood with two additional friends acting as an escort on their mopeds. He said, while he was looking forward to all of his family visiting the east coast for the first time, feeling the support from his neighbors helped to fill that hole.
“We weren’t expecting a lot but a large majority of our neighbors came out with pots and pans and people were set up with blankets on their front porches or just sitting in chairs and awaiting us,” Herron said. “We were expecting maybe a couple people to come out, but a lot of our neighborhood showed up which made us feel really special.”
As far as his future plans go, Herron plans to move to New York and work as a strategy consultant in the fall, but he is hoping to return to Chapel Hill sooner than later for postponed senior activates and, of course, to find some closure.
“It hasn’t really hit yet,” Herron said. “It definitely was an anticlimactic ending to our senior year. The last of my Carolina experience was closing a computer. So from that aspect it doesn’t feel over. It doesn’t feel like there’s a sense of closure yet.”
Ryan Herron and friends on their graduate parade through the neighborhood
Abby Fogarty is a new graduate with a B.A in Psychology, a B.A. in Global Studies and a minor in Social and Economic Justice.
Fogarty decided to stay in Chapel Hill over graduation weekend to commemorate the day with her roommates who were also graduating.
“We woke up early and all put on our caps and gowns and gathered in the living room, sat on the couch and watched the live Facebook stream that they had of the commencement,” Fogarty said. “Then we all had homemade cinnamon rolls and went on a hike together.”
Although she was happy to celebrate in whatever way she could with her roommates, Fogarty said nothing really makes up for not having an in-person ceremony.
“It was definitely good that we had something planned, that we didn’t just let it pass without any kind of celebration” Fogarty said. “Even though the virtual commencement was far from what we wished we’d been doing that day, it was still important to me to have something that marked the day and made it a little bit special.”
Originally, Fogarty said she was going to teach English in Spain for a year, but now that that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen, she is looking for a silver lining. For her, that’s anticipating the new 2020 graduation weekend – whenever that happens.
She said UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz announced during the virtual commencement that plans would be released for an in-person ceremony soon – and it will hopefully be this year.
For Fogarty, that leaves enough room for a little optimism.
Abby Fogarty (middle) and her roommates as they watched the virtual ceremony.
“I have a lot of excitement and hope for our graduation weekend being this big reunion,” Fogarty said. “Kind of like we made it, that was awful, we all hated that but we’re back together now and it’s even better than our original graduation would have been because we’ve already missed each other and now we’re coming back and call tell each other how much we’ve missed each other and how much we mean to each other.”
Lead photo courtesy of Ryan Herron.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
Comments on Chapelboro are moderated according to our Community Guidelines