Seniors share missed experiences

As a result of the coronavirus outbreak, Lehigh seniors are left to reflect on fond college memories before they were sent home — as well as memories they didn’t have the chance to make — as the class of 2020 misses out on some of the traditional last moments of the college experience.

Owen Quinn, ’20, co-captain of the men’s golf team and a member of the Student Athlete Council, said he wishes he got involved earlier in some of the activities he started doing his senior year.

Once he got to know people better, he started attending more sports games and started to dress up in costumes for basketball games. However, he didn’t start participating this way until the second half of his senior year.

“The response was great, like, a lot of people started to join in with me,” Quinn said. “I wish I’d started doing it earlier because I think it could’ve changed some of the culture around attending sports games and cheering on our teams.”

Quinn missed out on the second half of his senior golf season and said he didn’t get to compete to the extent that he had hoped to during his last semester on campus.

“It was definitely difficult, and I trained for so long to hopefully win a Patriot League Championship, and to have that stripped away is tough to swallow,” Quinn said.

Kayla Rabin, ’20, worked as an Admissions fellow for the Office of Admissions, which she said was one of the most rewarding experiences she had at Lehigh.

Rabin helped organize last year’s Diversity Life weekend, in which 100 or more accepted students from all over the country come to campus for a weekend and get to experience what life at Lehigh is like. At the time, she didn’t realize that would be her last Diversity Life weekend. 

“I tried to take advantage of all the opportunities that Lehigh offered, like socially and academically, for the most part, but it is sad that we don’t have our graduation as planned,” Rabin said. “It won’t be the same.”

Rabin said some of her greatest memories at Lehigh were when Halsey and the Lost Kings performed on the UC Front Lawn.

Quinn and Rabin were both unable to attend the Le-Laf bed races during their time at Lehigh, and both said it was something they wished they had done before graduating. 

John Cantwell, ’20, said he will miss the seniors’ Wednesday night bowling league and actively interacting with professors and students in classrooms.

“I definitely took for granted being able to go to class every day and see people I’m not necessarily friends with, and I don’t see on a daily basis,” Cantwell said. “Now, especially in Zoom classes, you’re just listening to a lecture, and it takes the faces and people out of it.”

Quinn shared a similar sentiment and said there are a lot of people who made his Lehigh experience so great, and he’d love to see them again.

“My last time going to Molly’s or just going out with my friends and stuff, we just kind of took it as another night,” Quinn said.

Just being social with people, going to the local bars and singing karaoke at Tally Ho are some things seniors didn’t realize they would be doing for the last time while it was happening, Rabin said. 

“It’s almost like you’re reliving freshman year, meeting new people all over again, so that was just getting started right before spring break, and, obviously, now we kind of missed out on that,” Cantwell said.