This afternoon, a look-alike group of 33 emerging adults, all draped in royal blue and capped with tasseled mortarboards, will gather in the Rila Theater for the 2021 AAS commencement ceremony.   Today we celebrate their collective achievement of completing 12 years of school and graduating from AAS. Soon after the ceremony, though, they’ll shed their grad attire, leave campus (many never to return), and head off on their individual paths. What’s next for the AAS Class of 2021?  Most will go immediately to university. The top destination continues to be the United Kingdom, with seven AAS grads moving there for their studies….

Graduating during a pandemic is strange. Not in the usual “these uncertain times” sense (although it in no way lacks uncertainty), but rather in an eerie, almost alien way. For one, it is important to remember that while graduation is on May 28th, 2021, all classes ended on April 23rd. And between these two fateful days were supposed to be the infamous IB Examinations, which thanking the successful unionising of 12th grade together with the excellent leadership displayed by the administration, were dutifully removed. This, however, left a vacuum: between the 23rd of April and May 28th, the Seniors are entirely, or nearly entirely, lacking a North Star: disoriented. …