College Class of 2024: Shaped by crisis, seeking community

The class of 2024 began its college years as virtual students, arriving on once-vibrant campuses muffled by COVID-19. 

Now they’re graduating from college during another season of turmoil, this time caused by protests about the war in Gaza that have swept colleges and roiled national politics. 

Why We Wrote This

From pandemic to protests, these college seniors have faced unusual challenges. Many long for community – and have learned something about building it.

As these seniors begin to pack up, many are seeking to make sense of their college experience amid fractious national political debates and rapid technological change. They have seen community fall away – and have learned something about building it back. They are celebrating their graduation, but with a mix of pensiveness, anxiety, and cautious anticipation.

Kristen Simpson, who will graduate from Berklee College in Boston on Saturday, says that she is hopeful about the future. “I graduated high school during COVID, so I didn’t get a graduation,” she says. “So this is my big celebration. There’s closure this time, which is good.”

The class of 2024 began their college years as virtual students, arriving on once-vibrant campuses muffled by COVID-19. Most had missed out on high school graduations and proms. Now they’re graduating from college during another season of turmoil, this time caused by protests about the war in Gaza that have swept colleges and roiled national politics. 

As these seniors begin to pack up, many are seeking to make sense of their college experience amid fractious national political debates and rapid technological change. They have seen community fall away – and have learned something about building it back. They are celebrating their graduation, but with a mix of pensiveness, anxiety, and cautious anticipation.

“It just felt like it went super fast,’’ says Wesley Mitchell, a senior film and TV major at New York University in Manhattan, who left his last class on Monday to enjoy the sunshine in nearby Washington Square Park. The first year was rough, he says. And now he’s graduating during a time of rancor over the Israel-Hamas War. 

Why We Wrote This

From pandemic to protests, these college seniors have faced unusual challenges. Many long for community – and have learned something about building it.

“There’s pro-Palestinian people on one side and then pro-Israel people on the other, and they’re just, you know, not talking,’’ says Mr. Mitchell. “Yeah, I totally get it. I feel like everyone kind of wants a community, but no one can come to terms on the same set of agreements.’’

Still, Mr. Mitchell says he feels upbeat about graduating, given that his cohort of 2024 graduates has weathered so much. He reflected on the sense of liberation that came with an end to pandemic policies such as mandatory face masks, and how students came together again. He sees the same yearning for community in many protesters, even if he doesn’t share their politics or passions. 

Jacob Hamilton/Ann Arbor News/AP

Pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrate during the University of Michigan’s 2024 Commencement Ceremony at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor, Mich., May 4, 2024.

“Students started college so isolated because of safety precautions,” says Suzanne Rivera, president of Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota, which had a two-day occupation of a building in March that ended peacefully. “Many students who are at college today missed out on things like learning how to drive, or going to parties. … They didn’t get to socialize or come of age in the traditional way.” 

Like Dr. Rivera, university administrators nationwide are trying to restore normalcy to their campuses ahead of graduation ceremonies that could be disrupted by protesters. Columbia University in New York, Emory University in Atlanta, and the University of Southern California have decided to scale down or relocate commencements. At other universities, protest encampments occupy spaces usually given over to graduation events. 

Seeking community and a cause

This specific cohort has experienced college life bookended by a pandemic and war in the Middle East. While outside political activists have been detained by police on some campuses, most protesters are current or former students. 

For some, the camps have become spaces where volunteers take on roles such as distributing donated food and holding teach-ins and religious rites. And for a generation that feels disengaged from institutional culture, a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” offers an alternative structure. 

For others, though, the spread of the pro-Palestinian camps and the invective they often direct at pro-Israel members of the community is another reason to distrust institutions like universities that profess to be inclusive. For months, college presidents have faced criticism from some students, parents, and donors over anti-semitism on campuses. Complaints about Islamophobia and intimidation of pro-Palestinian voices have received less attention. 

Jason, a business senior at NYU, says the university has failed to provide a safe environment for Jewish students. This senior, who declined to give his full name, wore a kippah on his head as he watched a pro-Palestinian protest unfold in Washington Square. 

“They weren’t able to provide for students first with COVID. And then once again, they’re failing us as well, albeit in a smaller demographic, but one that’s still important as well to the school,” he says, referring to Jewish students at NYU. 

Ali Martin/The Christian Science Monitor

Patricia Martinez (center) delivers this painting to her friend Jaiden Flores (left), on May 7, 2024, along with their friend Jasmine Tena at California State University, Bakersfield, where all three are students. Ms. Martinez, a graduating math major, is the first in her family to earn a college degree.

At her high school in central California, Patricia Martinez was politically engaged. But as an applied-math major at California State University, Bakersfield, she has focused on studying in order to graduate early. Her campus, she notes, has been relatively quiet.

A first-generation college student, she says her peers seem to tune out political news.

“I do believe that a lot of people choose to turn away. Maybe it’s just easier for them to either, I wouldn’t say be misinformed, but maybe not be informed at all in the first place. But I do think we should all at least know a little bit of something,” she says as she hands over a painting she has sold – one of her side gigs – to a friend. 

After spending her last two years of high school and her first year of college in pandemic-related isolation, Ms. Martinez’s strongest memories of this past year are of the friends she’s made.

“I think I actually got better at engaging with people,’’ she says. “There weren’t so many barriers anymore.’’ 

Cal State Bakersfield serves a largely working-class student body – two-thirds are the first in their families to attend college – and the only protests this school year were led by faculty demanding better pay. “It’s kind of nice to be at a school that doesn’t have all this crazy stuff going on,” says Magie Uribe, a psychology major who will graduate next week. 

When she’s not in class, Ms. Uribe coaches high school cheerleading and teaches children’s gymnastics and dance. This past year, she says, has been about trying to get by. 

“I’m always working with the younger generation who are so innocent,’’ she says. “It’s kind of nice, like an escape.’’

Technology’s impact on community

Even before the pandemic emptied classrooms in 2020, students were showing rising levels of mental and emotional distress that, in some respects, form the backdrop to the campus activism that erupted after Hamas attacked Israel last October.   

A New York City police officer looks over Columbia University’s normal graduation site May 6, 2024. The university says it is canceling its university-wide commencement ceremony following weeks of pro-Palestinian protests. Smaller school-based ceremonies are still on for this week and next.

Technology has fostered virtual interactions that can eclipse face-to-face encounters. Students spend more time on phones and laptops and less time socializing, studying, and eating with their peers on campus; participation in clubs and sports have suffered. Some of these shifts in behavior preceded the pandemic but were accelerated by virtual teaching and limits on student gatherings. As Zoom meetings replaced meet-ups, students adjusted to an atomized campus. 

In the 2014-15 academic year, 20% of students reported a diagnosis of clinical depression, according to Healthy Minds, an annual web-based survey of students at more than 450 colleges and universities. By 2018-19, that share had risen to 36%. Last year (2022-23) it was 41%, which was down three points from the previous survey. Around one in seven students said they had considered suicide in the past year. Anxiety and eating disorders have been rising. 

Dr. Rivera at Macalester has seen how these challenges impact students and teachers, but she says that during this school year it feels like a corner has been turned. 

“This year looked to me like the full college experience,” she says. Macalester will graduate 509 seniors on Saturday on its quad. “We hope it will be a source of some healing for the grief that everyone felt four years ago when they missed out on graduation.”  

Students are hoping so, too. On Thursday, Kristen Simpson and Hannah Freeman took advantage of a break in Boston’s sporadic rain showers to take photos outside in their caps and gowns. Ms. Simpson will graduate from Berklee College on Saturday, followed by Ms. Freeman, a theater major at Emerson College, on Sunday. 

Even with family members coming from Colorado, North Carolina, and Oregon to Ms. Freeman’s graduation, the moment feels bittersweet. 

“Emerson had a huge protest and a lot of arrests recently, so I’m curious to see how that affects the ceremony,” she says. “The state of the world is terrifying, and it’s weird to feel like I’m just going to walk across the stage to celebrate when there’s so much going on.”

For Ms. Simpson, a guitar performance major, Berklee’s Saturday ceremony is an important marker on her life journey and one she relishes. 

“I graduated high school during COVID, so I didn’t get a graduation,” she says. “So this is my big celebration. There’s closure this time, which is good.”

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