0920_September Comstock's Magazine September 2020 | Page 34

EDUCATION
iam Graf was set to attend
UC Riverside this fall. The graduate from
Whitney High School in Rocklin applied
with an undeclared major and was hoping
to find his path in the humanities or
liberal arts. Then the coronavirus pandemic
hit, and higher education moved
mostly online. Suddenly, the first-year
residential-college experience Graf was
hoping for was in jeopardy.
“I was looking forward to the
whole experience — the dorm rooms
and meeting new people,” he says. “I
feel it’s already a financial burden, so
when the school said it was going to
be primarily online, it just didn’t seem
worth it to me.” Graf decided to stay in
his hometown of Rocklin and attend
Sierra College this summer, followed by
a six-month study-abroad program at
an international school in Germany. In
August, Graf was notified that the international
school he enrolled in postponed
his program until January 2021.
He regrouped again and reverted to his
original plan of attending community
college and enrolled in Sierra College
for fall; he plans to reapply to UC Riverside
for the 2021-22 academic year.
With remote learning continuing
into the fall for many four-year colleges
and universities, and countless unknowns
surrounding on-campus and
residential services, 2020 high school
graduates are reassessing their firstyear
college plans. Now these students
are weighing all the options, including
staying home for community college,
learning online at a four-year college,
postponing college altogether and taking
a gap year, or studying internationally.
While Graf initially hadn’t considered
going abroad, the international school
promised the on-campus experience he
was hoping for with a mixture of inperson
and online classes. When that
was delayed, community college seemed
the prudent choice. “All these changes
have been really hard and made it almost
impossible to plan,” he says.
With students reconsidering their
options, Sacramento-area community
colleges have also seen a significant
increase in applications and enrollment
for classes, starting with the summer
2020 session. Willy Duncan, president
of Sierra College, estimates that
summer enrollment increased approxi-
34 comstocksmag.com | September 2020