Class of 2024: 'Pandemic graduates' are tough, tested and smart | R. Bruce Anderson
This time of year is a time for new beginnings – and an ending, but that’s elusive.
Graduates cross the stage, but they never really “end” their association with their alma mater. They’ll be back, to say hi, accomplishments behind them and in front of them. We’ve spent the past year starting a new class down the road to graduation and helping to prep those departing in the spring for the next steps.
As the semester wound down, I spent time grading, serving up pancakes at “Cram Jam,” and announcing the WLAX game. All after a morning going over comprehensive exams – a scary hurdle faced down each year by successive graduating classes in my department consisting of a six-hour assessment of the past four years. At this writing, I was a bit tired. I’ve had a few meetings with students about ongoing projects, but exams are over, and I wanted to at least try to put down a small bit of reflection on the semester – and the year.
The class that graduates this spring has been widely labeled “pandemic graduates,” or something of the sort, since many started their college careers in fall of 2020, the year the virus hammer came down hard. They came into our world under normal conditions, then saw it spiral downward into the chaos of disconnection.
We all struggled back, finally fully returning to pre-pandemic conditions this past year. Faculty and administrators and staff all went through this, too. The students who are first-year college kids this year went through the disarray, bedlam and polarity of restrictions in high schools, only surfacing to something like stable this year, as they entered college for the first time.
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There are a ton of news articles, opinions and autopsies crawling weakly into print this spring outlining how this cluster of college students is paranormally different from all that came before them. According to these reports, they are somehow more fragile, more tenuous, less “driven” — weaker in the soul — than the class of 2019. And there are some differences, but most of the media clatter is hogwash and jangled clickbait for worried parents.
Don’t worry. In my estimation, their performance has been, far and away, in the positive direction.
My observance is unscientific, anecdotal and based on my own narrow experience rather than anemic pseudo-psychology. It’s simple: the people who make up this crew — class of 2024 — are some of the very best all-round students we’ve had in our classrooms. I’m blown away by what this graduating class will be headed toward and can’t wait to see how our first-year class tackles the next three. Not kidding.
Does this connect to the pandemic? I have no idea (see “unscientific,” noted above). But in my view, people who face actual crises and come out the other side packing that experience just tend to do better when it comes to facing down the littler adversities.
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Hunter used to say “when the going gets weird, the weird turn pro,” and there’s a sense of that in this bunch. Those entering college in 2020 had to battle through four years of tearing what they needed from a global environment that was fractured by calamity and divided by strong opinions on how to solve for it. And they adjusted – as did we all – and came out of it great communicators, great writers, solidly educated.
Despite the restrictions and adjustments, colleges turned out to be real havens of learning, of shared responsibility, and of collaboration, as never before. We all learned to accept and move forward — and it all impacted this class. There are no “snowflakes” among them. They are tough and tested and ready for a new world.
This is an exceptionally strong class this year: seasoned by catastrophe, emotionally sturdy and knowledgeable, ready for the workplace, medical or law school, graduate school, or whatever comes next.
Happy graduation, class of 2024.
R. Bruce Anderson is the Dr. Sarah D. and L. Kirk McKay, Jr. Endowed Chair in American History, Government, and Civics and Miller Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Florida Southern College. He is also a columnist for The Ledger and political consultant and on-air commentator for WLKF Radio in Lakeland.
This article originally appeared on The Ledger: 'Pandemic graduates' are no snowflakes | Anderson
