Graduation and a Global Pandemic

Jessica Colombo
4 min readDec 7, 2020

Jacob Barnard, a senior at Colorado State Univesity (CSU) with a graduation date that’s a month out, is one of many 22-year-olds trudging through the abnormal struggles plaguing these last 12 months. Barnard is on the tail end of finishing his degree in Business Administrations with a concentration in Marketing and Computer Information Systems. Although completing his degree has been outshined by the global pandemic caused by COVID-19.

Jacob Barnard at brunch in Old Town, Fort Collins by Jessica Colombo

The stress of graduating is no small one. There’s the pressure of deciding what route you want to take, the job search itself, finding and maintain connections within your field, creating resumes, portfolios, and deciding to leave behind the life you’ve made. Now add in the bizarre storm that COVID-19 started. Within a week, spring break of 2020 turned into a three-month quarantine. The way we received our education was at home through our screens. The death toll kept going up, and people were hoarding sanitary products out of fear. All that catastrophe has just bled into the months that followed. Maintaining normality while navigating through the thralls of the pandemic seems to be the standard.

I met Barnard at a brunch spot in Old Town, Fort Collins. I was there before him and sat at a table by the window. It was loud inside, friends meeting up to enjoy the bottomless weekend mimosas. I saw Barnard step through the door, a mask covering his face, something that has become all too mundane. It was the perfect example of a typical Sunday, but the pandemic’s effect is always evident. He comes over to the table, taking off his mask; the only greeting given was a simple smile and hello. No handshaking and no touching. Although it was loud, all the tables were spaced apart, giving us enough privacy. The juxtaposition of Sunday brunch during a pandemic were obvious to both of us. “I really didn’t think it would last this long,” Barnard says while looking at the mask-wearing waiter a couple of tables over. “Right before spring break, there were the rumblings that things were about to get bad, and I started to hear the rumors of the plan to not come back after break, and I thought there was no way we were going to go all online and then you know, we did.” he continued.

Barnard is unique in the aspect that he will be graduating this month, December 2020, right in the heart of what seems to be the second spike of COVID cases. The consequences of this pandemic have weighed down the last two semesters of his college career. “As the virus progresses, so do my anxieties surrounding the consequences of it. At first, things were changing so quickly the fear never had a chance to set it. Now that things have regulated, my worries are a lot more future-focused.” Says Barnard as we relax at our table. He continues by telling me how, when this all began, he was searching for jobs and internships for the summer. “It quickly became a reality that that wasn’t going to happen. I had to have the conversation with myself about what my plan was going to be not just for the summer but after,” says Barnard.

With college courses being moved online, there was also the question of if there would be a loss of educational quality. Barnard was working through some of his more critical classes for his major and now was grappling with the loss of more intimate learning. “I was upset with the quality of classes last spring semester, granted teachers only had about two weeks to restructure everything. After the summer, though, I really think CSU handled the fall semester as best they could. It’s hard, though, because there really is no substitute for in-person learning.” Barnard explains.

I wanted to know if Barnard wished he had graduated earlier, if he felt like his education had been sabotaged, and he said, “It’s important to learn how to function in a world that’s so different than what we’re used to. If anything, it taught me resilience, allowed me to be creative, and let me understand what I really want to do with my life.”

While we sat there discussing the challenges of a student trying to graduate during a pandemic, it was painfully evident how much our world has changed to accommodate both the virus and everyday life. Still, as a soon to be CSU alumni, Barnard believes that fear and stress can also be great educators.

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Jessica Colombo
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Colorado State University student pursuing a degree in Journalism and Media Communications with an interest in public relations.