LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — High school seniors were thinking about prom, planning their graduation parties and mapping out the rest of their lives in early 2020, but just like that, those plans changed.
Five years later, many of those seniors have graduated college and started their careers.
I caught up with two 2020 high school grads — one from Clark High School and another from Spring Valley High School — to learn more about how COVID-19 changed their lives then and how it shaped them into the people they are now.
Here are their stories.
"I can't believe it was five years ago."
Jay Parikh and his friends at Clark High School had a calculus test coming up in March of 2020 when CCSD announced the rest of their senior year would look a lot different.
"A few of us were celebrating having to delay that exam, but we ended up never coming back," Parikh said. "It was quite the shock."
▶ Looking Back Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak announces school closures in Nevada
Spring Valley grad Zoe McCracken says questions immediately started swirling for her and her fellow seniors.
"It was really hard to understand that I walked in one day, and then after school activities were canceled, and I just never came back," McCracken said.
Around the valley, proms were canceled and graduations were either moved online, to parking lots or were isolated to just family only.
▶ Looking Back CCSD graduation plans a work in progress
I asked McCracken if she's able to look back at the uniqueness of the circumstances and appreciate them at all, or if she wished it would've happened another way.
"I think I look back a lot, and I'm really grateful that the staff and faculty, and even the district were all trying to do something for us," she responded. "They were really trying to make a difference for us, so that we still felt celebrated."
Parikh and I went to the same high school but had drastically different senior years and graduation experiences. I asked him what it was like to live through something that no one else has.
"It was really crazy, because it wasn't just our high school [experience] that was affected, it was our whole lives," Parikh said.
Both Parikh and McCracken say COVID forced them to grow up a little quicker.
"It helped us realize that we're lucky to be here, and I'm always grateful every day to live," Parikh said.
"I feel like you don't know what you have until you don't have it," McCracken said. "It definitely changed what I thought was important."
They say it strengthened relationships with friends and family, which they've carried with them into their careers five years later — McCracken in music festival production in Los Angeles, and Parikh as a first-year student at UNLV's Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine.
"I don't think I'd be sitting where I am if it weren't for those circumstances," McCracken said. "It was kind of a blessing in disguise."
"Seeing COVID hit, it kind of inspired me to live in the moment," Parikh said. "Enjoy what you're doing and don't take anything for granted, because your life can change in one minute."
COVID-19 Five Years Later, Channel 13 is bringing you special coverage all day Monday as we explore the lasting impacts and lessons learned.
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