dear seniors + crisis tech
HOME, DND—
some housekeeping: i want to start by stealing a line from chelsea fagan, a writer who i’ve long admired: “it is important in uncertain times to be as gracious and as cognizant as possible about your own privileges and advantages in these situations.”
school shutdowns extend far past the emotional toll of a college goodbye. kids are going without meals, back to broken homes, or are stranded from their family because they can’t afford a plane ticket back home overseas. some don’t have a home because they are going to be kicked out of their dorms. i don’t quite know how to talk about these very real hardships in a way that feels authentic. i realize that is a privilege in and of itself. this post, while not all encapsulating of what a college shutdown can mean, is just one small way to offer some kind of hope in the only way i know how.
i left college with more warning than most. i graduated a semester earlier than my friends and signed a job offer before even handing in my last final. ultimately, and what i now realize should be considered as luckily, i had a handful of months to be present before the concept of saying goodbye had even settled in for most of my friends.
the result was, to almost a humorous extent, way too many goodbye hugs and goodbye tears.
i’m telling you this because even with a head start, it was hard to leave college. it will be even harder for the seniors who are evacuating their dorms and hugging their friends turned family goodbye on a one night’s notice. i can’t pretend to understand how complex and confusing those feelings might be.
but, dear seniors, while i can’t relate to this madness, i’m here to tell you something that makes leaving college a little bit easier: the thing that made the last four years so special isn’t going anywhere.
more later, including what the heck i mean by that, but first my words + reads:
my words: i wrote about how edtech startups are preparing to become not just a tool, but a necessity as schools shutdown across the country. in the piece, i tackle two main questions: can edtech startups help legacy institutions rapidly adopt online teaching services? and perhaps more tellingly, can they do so in a seamless way?
etc: i am up and running at techcrunch so send me tips on how your company is reacting to COVID-19 at natasha.m@techcrunch.com. as always, you can find me on twitter too.
learning lesson: i took a longer hiatus than expected from this newsletter, because quite frankly, it has felt hard to write about anything other than the pandemic. and i didn’t want to add another hard headline about it to your inbox. obviously, if you’re reading until now, you can see that i decided to find a middle ground anyways.
unorganized tab time:
does coronavirus need a brand?
he has 17,700 bottles of hand sanitizer and no where to sell them
something that has genuinely nothing to do with covid-19
anyways
to me, college meant coming home to people who help you take your day off. it means taking turns between the highest of highs and lowest of lows, and being surrounded by people regardless of which side you land on.
it meant group chats that light up every time there’s a lame excuse to drink or spontaneously meet up for a marblelympics binge.
and i think part of the reason we say goodbye a million times over because we think we’ll never be as lucky as we were in those four years ever again. i imagine that is a scary thing for you to feel, literally overnight.
but here’s something i wish i knew then: as amazing as they are, the housing algorithms and the mandatory RA events and the late night study sessions did not bring you such an amazing college experience. it was your own warmth. you drew those people toward you, and you showed up time and time again for the things that mattered. and you’re going to bring that energy to wherever you go next, and find your community once again.
simply put: you are the reason you have something so beautiful (and so hard) to say goodbye to. be proud of that, and remember that you are not going anywhere.
so please, while it might feel like this is your last few days before the world comes crashing down. it is not. go home. hug your family. do not bar hop. skip spring break. cry the valid tears. and remember your real friends will stay your real friends, your groupchats will live on, and soon enough, you’ll have new ones right alongside the old ones. except these ones will light up about post-work happy hours and office drama.
let me end by broadening this out to the majority of my readers. while most of you are not seniors in college, i’m guessing you may know someone doing the opposite of social distancing and thus becoming a potential danger to high risk people. the same lesson as above goes. unexpected change isn’t easy, but if you take precautions now and cancel the parties and bar crawls, we will get to the finish line sooner. and think about all we’ll have to celebrate then.
stay safe,
n
some solace on a run this week