After five years at Whitewater, I have had many fantastic and challenging experiences that I will carry with me throughout my life. I have met and grown close with people I never thought I would meet and found myself truly loving this small town and all it has to offer, if you just take the time to look around. The university itself has also offered many amazing opportunities that make me thankful to have chosen Whitewater for my post-secondary education.

However, the past two semesters have brought many subpar and challenging experiences. The necessarily sudden transition to online-only learning for a great many classes was at times a bit rocky, to say the least. This is through no fault the university itself, but rather, individual professors’ naturally varying levels of care and passion to teach were put on display and magnified exponentially. That is unavoidable under recent circumstances, again given the rapid nature of the transition. I also lament not being able to have the true “college experience” both on and off campus. The level of casual collaboration, learning and overall camaraderie across our academic community has absolutely suffered from the necessary lack of physical human interaction. Regardless, the fact remains that amidst and despite all this change and uncertainty so many of us are finding success in our lives. I am honored to be part of the graduating class of 2021. We have been through many trials and most certainly through many more soon-graduating in a severe recession and on what is hopefully the tail end of a global health crisis will guarantee that. We do not know what the future will bring, but if nothing else, we can be proud of ourselves for making it through the end of this chapter. I hope subsequent semesters will get to experience the Whitewater, both university and city of, that we remember when we first came here years ago.