The promise of college in America is the promise of a clear path to the future, of a reward for all the sleep deprivation and soul-deadening competition of high school, and, most of all, of instant adulthood. As of April, 2020, however, none of that is happening due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus (新型冠状病毒).
Saminah Haddad, a seventeen-year-old senior at Long Beach Polytechnic High School, wasn't expecting her college offers until later in the spring. This year, there will be no spring season, which for Haddad means no four-year college. She is considering Long Beach City College, which is free for state residents. She also lost her job at an amusement park. All of the senior- year milestones that Haddad had been looking forward to have been canceled: prom, graduation, and an event called the" Pursuit of Excellence Awards, "where she would have been recognized for perfect attendance. She doesn't yet know if she'll still be working this summer for her father, who was about to open a juice bar in Brooklyn.
In the meantime, Haddad's school is offering some online instruction, but in her case the course load has dropped to just two classes: AP. Literature, which meets virtually, and a government class, which consists of written assignments that she receives by e-mail. Haddad is planning to take her A.P. exam, though she finds it hard to imagine what the forty-five-minute, cell-phone-friendly version of the test will be like. No one knows how colleges will view it, either.
Life has been emptied of content, and the plot is lost. She texts with friends .She argues with her mom and stepdad a lot, "I's bringing us closer together, "she half joked. "But it's O.K."
