It’s time for the class of 2021 to say goodbye to UC Santa Barbara. A pandemic prevented graduates from spending their final year with friends, in classrooms, and on our beautiful campus. To honor seniors in the Division of Humanities and Fine Arts, here is a collection of reflections from students expressing their experiences and feelings about spending their last year at UCSB in the time of COVID 19.
Zachary Belgum (he/him)
Major: Chinese and Economics
Paying rent for an apartment in Isla Vista for a whole year and a half with no one living in it. Attending live Zoom courses where only a few students show their faces and the rest are black squares. Parting from our colleagues, best friends and on-campus community. This is what it is like to graduate during a pandemic.
Having the opportunity to move back home with my now “un-empty nested” parents and experience the joys of hope. Helping professors configure Zoom meetings and seizing opportunities to connect with classmates online. Making new friends and reconnecting with old high school friends back home. This is what it is like to graduate during a pandemic.
I say goodbye to UCSB by remembering all my academic, mental, and spiritual growth. I thank faculty and staff for their undying commitment to stand by me and develop me as a person. Thank you UCSB!
Bronwyn Bunnell (she/her)
Major: English
Here we go! Over the last-- -- -- -- -- -- --sorry I think my Wifi-- -- -- --and choppy-- -- -- -- -- --can you hear? My-- -- -- -- --maybe if I sit in the hallw-- -- -- --teaches 3rd grade in the living room, sorry for the backgro-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- I don’t know why my screen-- -- Yes! Ok, now we can-- -- -- -- hello?--whole family is on Zoom and-- -- -- -- Can you see me? -- -- -- Am I alone? -- -- -- was looking forward to -- -- a bit disappointing -- -- -- -- -- -- go ask Dad! I’m in the middle of -- -- -- -- wait, the cats -- -- Bruce, not the keyboard, I-- -- -- -- -- -- they like to be fed around -- --
-- don’t want to say “unprecedented” but -- -- --
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
---- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
-- -- --I’m trying my best-- -- -- -- -- --
click
sigh.
Anabel Costa (she/her)
Major: Theater
I think UCSB has a special energy about it that attracts free souls. I would see them riding waves and dancing on mountaintops, and I envied them, thinking I was caged. But in the last year I realized that we aren’t all that different, and the only thing stopping me is myself.
I’ve spent years just waiting to move on to the next chapter of my life, always eager to move forward without fully appreciating where I am. And when college didn’t turn out to be the magical, transcendent experience I thought it would be, I set my sights on life after graduation.
While I think it’s okay to be excited to move forward in life, this past year has taught me to spend less time getting wrapped up in the hope of what’s next, and instead focus on the good that’s already in front of me.
Sarah Danielzadeh (she/her)
Major: English
Whoever said, “college is the best four years of your life,” really did not account for a global pandemic. The feelings of distance, lost relationships and incurable loneliness did not make online learning any easier.
But, there is finally light on the horizon. The isolation is beginning to cease and soon we will be graduates entering a society that is allowed to hug, laugh and love in-person again. We will relearn how to foster social connections and form new friendships with others who are also healing from a social hiatus.
Graduating during a pandemic is no small feat, and it is one that should be celebrated relentlessly. I am grateful for every smile that has been shared through a Zoom screen, for every positive message I have received through social media and to each person that stayed inside to save lives while challenging themselves academically. Cheers to the Class of 2021. We did it.
James Ferraro (he/him)
Major: History
So much of the discourse about the pandemic posits that we are all isolated from each other, and that we need to reopen the economy in a sprint. Yet, the social reality of the pandemic illustrates that quarantine is the opposite of disconnected isolation from other people.
The wealthy and privileged have sat at home, while an underclass of gig workers, and service and retail employees generally, have facilitated the experience of isolation. If anything, this experience has demonstrated how deeply the economic superstructure is incumbent on the exploitation of labor.
We have valorized “essential workers,” and “healthcare heroes,” while President Biden reinstates work requirements for unemployment insurance, and the governor of Connecticut has called in the National Guard to quell a strike of nursing home workers. Did anyone really experience “isolation”? Or are we blind to the inegalitarian social reality as we leave the university?
Madison Fujii (she/her)
Major: Film and Media Studies
This song is a reflection on what kind of year we all had in 2020, and how good it feels to know that we're so close to not only coming out of the pandemic but graduating from UCSB, too! I came into UCSB dancing with my friends and having an amazing time, and that's exactly how I intend to exit. While I know nobody will miss the type of year we experienced, we'll all miss the social scene and the surplus of opportunities to dance!
Listen to Madison Fujii’s original song Credit below.
Emily Jimenez (she/her)
Major: English
To leave the nest
Your bike paths and buildings once so unfamiliar, Now whisper welcome home, every time I step Through Pardall Tunnel from the streets of IV.
No matter what baggage I bring, I always find my peace with you Nestled by that sweet lagoon, That ocean so blue.
I used to hate the smell in your air, Flooding my nostrils with the Scent of oil, but I have come To love that sticky black tar which Washes up on your coastal sands.
When we go our separate ways and Our visits grow few and far between, I will Miss it all, glow of golden orbs by the music building, Hunt to find a cozy spot for all-nighters at the lib, Snacks from the Arbor stuffed in hand, and even frantic Runs to South Hall, every day hoping to make it to class on time.
Goodbye my gaucho home, so sublime.
Tea Millan (she/her)
Major: English
Never did I imagine graduating college in a pandemic. Never did I think I’d ever use zoom so much, but for what it’s worth I’m here. Between moving back home to the midwest and living in IV, remote learning has been a challenge to overcome. One would think after a year of online schooling I’d get the hang of it, but just as anybody else I’m still trying to figure it out.
There’s something so strange about thinking about how my last day of college will end with a simple click. Closing tabs I’ll never have to open again. I know it won’t be the same as walking out of one of the classrooms at Girvetz, but it’s just as important if it were. With uncertainty surrounding us everywhere, the one thing I do know is I finished college at UCSB, which is pretty big if you ask me.
Hannah Morley (she/her)
Major: Writing and Literature
Isla Vista is full of ghosts, but they’re not wearing masks. Each one is a person who moved home, an experience lost, or a dream diverted. My expectations for 2021, my senior year, my “last good year,” haunt our winding city streets. I still think of myself as a third-year. I’m waiting for everyone I know to sing ABBA and reclaim our identity as students, as Isla Vistins, by diving into our freezing ocean. But we’ve been cycled out of UCSB. My senior year was misplaced, but I embrace its wackiness. The ghosts will always be there, but now we’re friends.
Ayesha Munawar (she/her)
Major: Communication
My college experience at UCSB was nothing like I imagined. My perception of college always stemmed from the outrageous stories my friends would tell me to movies and television shows depicting the perfect and wild college lifestyle. For the most part some of it was true.
From transferring in the fall of 2019 and quickly returning to home in Los Angeles towards the end of my winter quarter, I was devastated. I had spent two years at home attending community college prior to attending UCSB and all I could think about was when it would be my turn. When it would be my turn to make bad decisions, to make great decisions, and to finally be able to develop and nurture new campus wide relationships.
Part of me still feels that I was robbed of an authentic college experience, but another part of me strongly believes that everything does happen for a reason.