The spring semester of senior year is supposed to be something you remember; your last year in high school, last semester of being a kid, and for a lot of students, the last semester being at home. It’s supposed to be a time when you can go hang out with friends, party, and make memories before you all head off in different directions, starting your own life. 

When COVID-19 hit, however, those experiences were snatched away from them. Stuck inside their houses, they couldn’t make those wonderful that many had had the chance to before them. Most of those with curricular activities had to stop, their plans were put on hold, and thus, the happy anxiety of starting a life of their own changed to a depressed anxiety of what was to come now. 

This is when Rachel Ziegler, the leader of Owl Pals here at iUniversity Prep, came up with the idea of Senior Refresh Sessions.

“When I found out that I was the leader of Owl Pals back in August, I knew that I wanted to create face to face events to bring virtual students together.” She worked on some different ideas, and even started planning an event, but sadly, none of it ever happened. Then we were all forced into our houses, and she saw it as the perfect time to reach out and form relationships with others facing the same unfortunate events. 

 “After speaking with many of my fellow senior students, all involved in different extracurricular activities with different lifestyles, and seeing that the one consistency among all of them was that they were stressed, I knew I had to do something.” 

The Senior Refresh Sessions are a time where the seniors get to know each other and have a chance to vent about these overwhelming situations, or to “simply talk about things that only teenagers our age understand and deal with. I also prepare games that we can play to get to know each other, [but] what we do during this time is completely up for [anyone that comes] to decide, as this is for them.” 

This “Senior Refresh Sesh” is a great way to get to know and talk to your peers in this stressful time. If you’re a senior and would like to come, these meetings are held in Mrs. Holt’s LiveLesson room on Thursdays from 2-3 pm. If you want to know more about what they do, click here for a link to the slides from the last meeting! There isn’t meant to be any pressure, so don’t feel obliged to come, but it would be great to have YOU there!