Senior year: the final step before life leads you down your own path. A year every one of us has looked forward to since sitting on our rainbow carpet during first grade.

This should be our last year of waking up at 6am for our mom to take a first day of school picture to put on Facebook. It should be the last year of getting trampled and pushed through the terminal trying to figure out whether or not J hall exists. The last year rushing to the cafeteria before the bell rings to buy tater tots, or fries if we’re lucky. And, the last year of desperately hoping fitness day falls on our certain lab day.

For remote learners in the graduating class of 2021, our virtual senior year will always be remembered as the one where we never got to walk through the halls hearing Dr.Vinella wish us all a great first day at EBHS over the loudspeaker. Instead, our senior year is taking place over Microsoft Team meetings and Canvas discussion posts where we find comfort in the little, but powerful buttons, allowing us to participate or stay silent during our classes.

Aribah Khan,12, shares that her senior year is “definitely going to be strange.” To her, “It already feels so weird not being physically in school with all my teachers and friends, and instead staring at them through my Lenovo.”

Although this isn’t quite the “High School Musical 3: Senior Year” vibe we all slightly anticipated, it doesn’t mean we can’t still fill this year with memories. Although we might, and we may never, get the last year of high school we originally planned for, us seniors can still make this final year count. So to the graduating class of 2021; happy senior year, in whatever form it takes, and best of luck!