A day in the life of a high school senior during the coronavirus pandemic
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Keira McGuire
“I think throughout my life, I’ve always had adults that could tell me what was going to happen. And just nobody really knows,” said Olivia Riek, high school senior in York County School District.
Editor’s note: Olivia Riek’s mother, Debbie Riek, is WITF’s Director of Education.
On April 6, Olivia Riek sat down to begin her day of online schooling. It has been roughly 22 days since the York County School District senior was physically in a classroom and 37 days since the COVID-19 national emergency declaration.
She says this is the scariest situation she has lived through.
“I think throughout my life, I’ve always had adults that could tell me what was going to happen. And just nobody really knows,” Riek said.
Courtesy of the Riek family
Olivia Riek poses for senior portraits.
She is heavily involved in school activities. Riek has already missed events including the Future Business Leaders of America state competition, and she’s wondering what will happen with prom and graduation.
“Having everything be canceled now is just — it’s kind of heartbreaking,” Riek said.
Although she likes that she can work at her own pace with online learning, she misses the in-person connection of being in the same room with her teachers and classmates. Still, at just 18 years old, Riek understands the seriousness of the situation and the need to stay home in order to flatten the curve.
“If it’ll help people stay alive, then I, of course, want this to be the way it is,” she said. “I think that from this, I’ve learned that if I can take away anything, it’s just to keep going by each day and keep hoping for a better day than the last. Because I think that’s really all I can do right now.”
Courtesy of the Riek family
Olivia Riek poses for senior portraits.
On April 9, Riek received news she was hoping not to hear: Gov. Tom Wolf announced school buildings would remain closed for the remainder of the school year.
“So I just found out that I will not be going back to school–ever again. I just kind of expected this to happen, but it’s definitely not what I wanted,” she said. “I really wanted to have like a last day and the last performance with my friends that I’ve been playing music with forever. And I wanted to, you know, get to say goodbye to my teachers and have that kind of last day thing.”
As Riek lets the news settle in, she also tries to remember that although her senior year may look different than she expected, it’s still her senior year.
“I’m graduating high school and that’s a really big deal,” she said. “And I think even though, you know, it’s in a pandemic, it’s still like one of my dreams.”
She has committed to attend Bloomsburg University in the fall, where she hopes she will be able to have a more traditional freshman year experience. She knows that moving forward, the coronavirus pandemic will be a unifying experience for everyone who lived through it.
“I think if anything comes out of this, it might be more empathy and more sympathy for one another, even if it’s just for a little while,” she said. “I think that we can recognize that we’ve all lost things, whether it’s people or, you know, things we’ve looked forward to for a good part of our lives. I think that it’s still something that we can recognize within each other that we’ve lost.”
A collection of interviews, photos, and music videos, featuring local musicians who have stopped by the WITF performance studio to share a little discussion and sound. Produced by WITF’s Joe Ulrich.
