The Class of 2024: From a pandemic to protests

This episode explores the unique college experiences of the class of 2024, marked by pandemics, protests, and social upheavals.

1. Resilience and Adaptation: The students discuss how adversity has fostered a profound sense of resilience and adaptability.
2. Loss of Optimism: Some students express a loss of the optimism they held in earlier years, replaced by a more pragmatic outlook.
3. Community and Solidarity: Despite challenges, there is a strong theme of finding strength in community and collective action.
4. Existential Reflections: The episode delves into the existential musings and emotional complexities the students experienced.
5. Advice for Future Classes: The graduates share advice for incoming students, emphasizing community involvement and self-care.

1: Introduction

Ilsa Chang introduces the topic and the unique challenges faced by the class of 2024. Key events like the pandemic and social protests are highlighted. Ilsa Chang: "The graduating college class of 2024 has been through a lot. Like, just think for a moment about what's transpired the last four years."

2: Student Experiences

Students share how historical events impacted their college life and personal growth. May Lammison: "I think a lot of people lost family members or community members or friends to Covid."

3: Resilience and Disillusionment

Discussion on how continuous global crises have shaped their perceptions and emotional responses. Alexis Jones: "18 year old me was very charged and like, I was very energized and I felt very empowered in my voice and like it would affect change. But I really don't feel that way now."

4: Looking Ahead

Students reflect on graduating into an uncertain world and their evolving views on activism and community. Annika Srinivas: "The way that we are able to mobilize ourselves to come together for something, even in the worst of times, I think is something really, really special that I've seen happen."

1. Lean on Community: Embrace the support and strength found in community connections.
2. Embrace Resilience: Recognize and cultivate personal and collective resilience in facing challenges.
3. Prioritize Self-Care: Balance activism with personal well-being; it's okay to step back sometimes.
4. Stay Informed and Engaged: Stay aware of global events but also find ways to contribute positively.
5. Reflect and Adapt: Continuously reassess personal beliefs and responses to changing circumstances.

Everyone says you live through history, but "I don't think anyone prepared us for this much history," say the students in the Class of 2024.

People

May Lammison, Alexis Jones, Annika Srinivas

Content Warnings:

None

Ilsa Chang
The graduating college class of 2024 has. Been through a lot. Like, just think for a moment about what's transpired the last four years. During the pandemic closures across the country. When they left for spring break, they never imagined they wouldn't be able to go back to their schools to wrap up their senior year.

Then protests against police brutality, then an insurrection at the US Capitol. Going to try to get compliance. But this is now effectively a riot. 1440, 9 hours declaring it a riot. The fall of Roe v.

Wade. Five justices ended the right of american women to choose abortion under the constitution. Then war in Ukraine, then war in Gaza, which then sparked massive protests on college campuses this spring.

For short years, these college students have lived through uncertainty, chaos, and unrest. And for some, that has actually been inspiring. I've never understood the term comrades in arms as much as I have after seeing everything that has happened in the world so far. I do believe that the world would be a better place because of the kids who are in college right now. But for others, they have lost the optimism and hope that they had as high schoolers.

Alexis Jones
18 year old me was very charged and like, I was very energized and I felt very empowered in my voice and like it would affect change. But I really don't feel that way now. Consider this. The graduating college class of 2024 has come of age during tumultuous times. How has living through all of this shaped their perspective on the world that they are graduating into?

Ilsa Chang
From NPR, I'm Ilsa Chang.

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Ilsa Chang
It's consider this from NPR. The class of 2024 has had a pretty unconventional college experience to put it lightly. Many kicked off their freshman year in isolation and attended their first college classes on Zoom. And now, as they prepare to graduate, protests against the war in Gaza are disrupting campuses across the country. We wanted to hear from some students of the class of 2024 to talk about how the last four years have impacted them.

May Lammison
Everyone tells you when you're growing up, you live through history. But I don't think anyone prepared us. For this much history, a concentrated dose of history. That's May Lammison, who is graduating from New York University, having the Black Lives. Matter protest, then the insurrection, then all these allegations and open cases on Trump, and then Roe versus Wade.

Ilsa Chang
And that's Alexis Jones, who's graduating from Cornell. Living through all of this, to some extent, has made people aware of the power that we hold as a collective. And that is Annika Srinivas, who's graduating from Northwestern. I started our conversation with the event that flipped many of our world's up upside down. The pandemic.

So when you all think about the pandemic and what it took away from you, like going back to high school senior year, all the way through the beginning of college, there was Miss prom, there was weird socialization rituals happening during freshman year, hybrid classes, screen fatigue. Do you have feelings of grief, of bitterness, of resentment? When you think about what the pandemic did to your early years in college? This is May. I think a lot of people lost family members or community members or friends to Covid.

May Lammison
And it's so hard to be in that position to have that grief for someone that you love. And kind of speaking out of my experience, I did lose someone to Covid. I'm sorry. Oh, thank you so much. Having that kind of put next to everything else being taken away, it just feels weird because you can look at it rationally and you can say, oh, well, it's okay for me to feel sad for things like trivial things, like my prom being taken away or my freshman year being online.

But then you almost feel bad for feeling bad about it because, you know, in the global scale, so many other things are happening that are so much worse. And I think a lot of us have had to ration with these really complicated feelings again at like, 17. Like feeling guilty for feeling vanity, feeling. Guilty for feeling upset. What about Annika and Alexis?

Ilsa Chang
Do you relate to some of that guilt that may is talking about? I think our class is probably, like, the most resilient group of people that I have seen in recent times. Just, you know, the COVID like the pandemic hit. And then the protests for George Floyd started happening for Black Lives Matter. And, you know, seeing all of that happen and then thinking to yourself, like, whining about not having a graduation, like, that's what it felt like.

Annika Srinivas
You know, I think all of the things that were happening in the world served to provide some perspective in a way, in the sense that things could be so much worse for us. And so, in a way, it was like, yes, like, I did miss out on a lot. And in some ways, I still feel guilty about complaining about things that I've missed out on now. Right. Like, as a senior in college, so.

Ilsa Chang
Many of your formative years were during the pandemic. You talk about resilience. What about other things? Tell me what you learned because of the pandemic. How do you think you changed over the last four years?

When you think about your 18 year old selves, how has the way you think about and view the world changed? Well, I think that, for me, I became an inherently more positive person as a result of everything that has happened. And so when I say resilience, I really mean that. I think our class has this incredible capability to, like, come together for these big issues, regardless of how they're feeling or how upset they are at the time. I've seen it time and time again on campus in terms of BLM, Ukraine, Roe v.

Annika Srinivas
Wade, most recently for Palestine. The way that we are able to mobilize ourselves to come together for something, even in the worst of times, I think is, is something really, really special that I've seen happen. Alexis, what do you think you've learned about yourself the last four years? Yeah, I also feel I've learned something in line with resiliency. And I'm also thinking of your prior question about feeling grief and all the different emotions that come with living through such tumultuous times.

Alexis Jones
I started to feel a lot of community right before COVID hit, and then Covid kind of muddled a lot of the progress I felt that was being made and then coming back together, as was Annika saying as well that we all were coming together and forming community around complex issues, although we all have our personal lives as well, where things are also happening. But I felt that throughout all of that, I kept feeling just a tiredness with everything. As the class that graduated high school, like at the height of the pandemic, what has it been like graduating college now during these anti war protests? Seeing these protests become the backdrop to your last moments in college, how have you been feeling about that? Is there a part of you that's like, oh, my God.

Ilsa Chang
Again, another thing. This is May in 2024. You know, we're seeing graduations across the country being canceled, your protests, another Trump v. Biden election. So it almost feels like we've come full circle.

May Lammison
And I don't think that a lot of people, and a lot of students in particular, are happy with where we're at. And so when we think also about how the pandemic has reshaped our view on the world, even though I do think it has given me resilience and my class resilience, it's given me also this expectation that things are gonna get worse. Oh, gosh. Like, you walk around with a perpetual sense of doom. Yeah, a little bit.

A little bit of existentialism. I also think, though, whereas Annika's, like. I'm now more positive. Yeah, I know. And I wanna say that I do.

Like, that's my desired mindset, but it's almost like so many punches have been thrown. You just keep expecting another one. Let me ask all of you. I hear Mae say that she's now a nihilist. I hear Annika say she now feels like she's a more positive person.

Ilsa Chang
How do you all feel about the world that you are graduating into? This is Alexis. Yes. I feel like, for the maze, nihilism, it's also like Annika's positivity is the remedy, because the state of the world is very tumultuous. It's very hectic, and it also does seem like things will be continuing in this manner, kind of this existential dread and doom that we all are speaking of.

Alexis Jones
But then it's like, okay, if this is the state of the world, how. What is my response to that? What is my communal and unified response to that? And I feel that that is where the positivity comes in. And, like, seeing everybody pull together for these various causes and be so young and also be experiencing so many things at the same time, I think kind of sets it up so that in the future, when we're all graduated, we still have this unity, and we also rely on this community that we've been able to develop.

Ilsa Chang
Well, now there's a new incoming college class that has been struggling too, right? Like the high school class of 2024, entered high school during the pandemic, is going to be starting college on the heels of these protests right before a presidential election this fall. What is your advice to them? It seems that, like, for Annika, and also for me, like, nihilism is a form of working to be realistic and to digest the things that are happening to us, and same thing with positivity. And I think the solution that I've been hearing throughout all of our conversation is to rely on community.

Alexis Jones
And I think maybe rather than looking to just a club for something to add to your resume or for something to help you within the workforce, or maybe even thinking of it as your own personal, individual bubble, you can think of it as, how are we coming together? And how is this one community connected to the next? My advice is to the incoming class to really value and lean on one another and also the elder or higher up figures that are also, also working alongside you. Annika? Yeah, I 100% resonate with what Alexis said.

Annika Srinivas
You know, I think that if I were. If I were kind of starting over, I think I would tell myself to lean into my discomfort a little bit more and ask myself why I feel the way I do. And I think that's a really crucial part of finding your community, because when you find people that are kind of having the same feelings as you, feeling the same type of discomfort as you, that starts to go away and you start to learn how to deal with it. And it makes you more resilient, I think, to confront those things head on with a group of people around you. For the incoming class of, what would it be?

May Lammison
2028? That is not a real year.

For the incoming class of 2028, I would say be proud to be a part of Gen Z. Our generation is so incredible. And like you just heard from Annika and Alexis, it is resilient. It is hopeful that you are a part of this group of changemakers. But that being said, don't feel like the weight of the world is on your shoulders.

It's okay to take a step back. It's okay to put your phone on do not disturb, and it's okay to be a little bit selfish and, you know, participate in a lot of these college experiences that maybe we didn't get to do or other people missed out on. Know that you can be both an activist and a changemaker, and you can also just be a person. I love that. May Lamisen, Anna Kashrinivas, and Alexis Jones.

Ilsa Chang
Congratulations to all three of you. The world is a better, brighter, more awesome place because the three of you exist. Best of luck to you all. Thank you so much. Thank you.

This episode was produced by Brianna Scott, and it was edited by Jeanette woods. Our executive producer is Sami Yenikin. And one more thing before we go. You can now enjoy the consider this newsletter we still help you break down a major story of the day, but you'll also get to know our producers and hosts and some moments of joy from the ALL Things considered team. You can sign up@npr.org.

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