A High School Senior's Experience

Bridgid Miller

Bridgid is a Senior at Hopkins High School and a four year Peer Minister

Wherever I go I always get asked the classic questions, “where do you go to school?” followed by, “what grade are you in?”. When I say I’m a senior, I always get the inevitable question, “what’s that like?”. It’s a fair question, this is a time that only the class of 2021 will hopefully ever experience. Last year's seniors lost their last three months but we haven’t had any months yet, and things are not looking up. But the question is really hard to answer because, let’s be honest, there’s a lot going on. Not only is there COVID-19, but we’re also addressing systemic racism, and dealing with our climate quickly deteriorating. Basically, we’re watching our world fall apart all around us and when we hear people tell us that we’re the future, it only adds to my generation’s notion that it’s up to us to fix all this. 

There are definitely a lot of parts that suck and make me feel hopeless and really frustrated. Obviously, losing my senior year and all the traditions and privileges that come with it is a pretty big one for me. I have been looking forward to this year for twelve years now, and working really hard to get here. And in six months, everything I dreamed it would be is gone. We don’t get pep fests, football games, or have the teachers that we’ve been waiting to have. And we’re the only class that will probably never get a chance at prom, which I personally am not sad about but many of my friends are.

My friends and I don’t get to see each other as much as we would like because my school is all online so I don’t see them every day like I would normally, and when we do it’s mostly socially distant and outside which is getting harder the colder it gets. More importantly however, in these past few months, I’ve seen a lot happening around Minneapolis that is really shocking. Not only seeing the police brutality but also the lack of justice with the response to it was really upsetting and frustrating, especially when it continued to happen in other places around the country. However the retaliation from the people has been encouraging.

I’ve been hearing all over that this is a time for us to come together, and I have seen a lot of that recently. After the murder of George Floyd, I took part in the protests. Being with all those people and marching together is such an empowering experience. Everyone around you has the same goal and attitude that you do, and it feels so good to actually be taking action and being a part of something bigger than yourself. It’s especially awesome when it’s a youth led protest, like the many climate change marches, as well as the anti gun violence march, that I attended. It’s really inspiring to be a part of a generation that is really politically active and prone to taking action, even when most of us can’t even vote. That kind of persistence and determination is what allows us to stay adaptable and optimistic even when we have to do school over google meets.

We’re still finding ways to be together even when it can’t look like normal. Like my senior class did a ‘senior sunrise’ where we all gathered on the football field at 6:30am and watched the sunrise together. We also organized an outdoor drive-in movie night where the whole school could come and watch together. And we’re trying to do that again but instead of a movie, we broadcast the football games so we can still watch them together. Because that’s “what it’s like”, there are a lot of things that make me really sad, but by choosing to focus on the good and the things I do have, I feel hopeful instead of defeated. 

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