Choosing a college in quarantine
Logan Flynn ’20
College of William & Mary
By Logan Flynn ’20 Grytte Writer
T
he college search is usually an exciting, often quite daunting, process. For high school seniors in 2020, this process has taken on entirely new levels of stress and uncertainty. With colleges and universities closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, prospective students have been unable to visit schools. Traditional admitted student events have been canceled, and virtual offerings have become students’ only means of gathering information. We are faced with making our most important decision yet without all the information we really need. I want to be a paleontologist, a scientist who studies the remains of ancient life forms. To become one, I’ll have to attend graduate school, but first, I’ll need to get an undergraduate degree in geology or earth science. With this degree in mind, I applied to a number of schools with well-respected earth science programs, and I was accepted at five of them. My next step was to determine which program would be best for me based not only on academic rigor, but on other factors like campus size, location, whether or not the people seemed friendly and inclusive, and whether or not I got a good feeling about spending the next four years there.
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COMMUNITY
My final decision came down to a connection I was able to make with the chair of the geology department at the College of William & Mary, the one school I’d never actually visited during my college search. I had applied to William & Mary because it has a great geology program, but also because my parents are alumni, and their stories of their experiences there are an important part of our family history. I emailed Dr. Rowan Lockwood, the geology chair, to introduce myself and to try to get some input on what my life would be like as a student at William & Mary. I was very excited to learn that she is a paleontologist, and I hoped she might be a good mentor for me. Dr. Lockwood replied to me almost immediately, and during an hour-long conference, she gave me detailed information about her department, and we talked a lot about what a potential career in paleontology might look like for me. I was inspired, and my decision was made. I feel lucky to have had the opportunity to choose between some fantastic colleges and universities, and I’m sure my classmates agree. Actually, I’m proud of us. If we can plan our next steps in the middle of a global catastrophe, what can’t we accomplish together?