Graphic by Anjali Rao-Herel ‘22
By Casey Roepke ’21
News Editor
“One day, I’m going to just log off of Zoom and be in my bedroom and be alone,” Claire Glover ’21 said. “There's nothing to mark it being over at all.”
Glover is one of a handful of students graduating early from Mount Holyoke College this December rather than finishing their college experience after the traditional spring term. Students can apply to graduate in the fall if they have completed their major and distribution requirements and have enough credits by the end of the term. According to the Office of the Registrar, there are 78 undergraduate students and one graduate student scheduled to complete degree requirements midyear, a 2 percent uptick from previous years.
Eligibility for midyear graduation is determined in a multistep process. First, in the late spring of junior year, students are asked for their preliminary graduation plan. Seniors are required to apply to graduate and can mark their graduation date in that form.
“Obviously, eligibility to graduate — early or on time — is based on students’ status in completing all degree requirements,” Registrar Elizabeth Pyle said. But in reality, eligible students do not graduate in December, Pyle added.
“The ‘midyear’ group doesn't actually graduate in December,” she said. “They may be finishing their requirements then, but fall grades aren’t available until January, and some students finishing away may still be taking courses in January term 2021. So the official degree date for all of these students will be March 8, 2021,” Pyle said. “We will be able to confirm that their degree requirements have been completed on a rolling basis once their grades come in, but the College will officially confer their degrees on March 8.”
“I decided late this past summer,” Molly Aslin ’21 said of her decision to graduate early. “Right when Mount Holyoke made the announcement that they were only keeping a small number of students on campus. I remember reading the College’s plan and just thinking to myself, ‘Oh. That’s it for me.’”
For many students, choosing to graduate a semester early resulted from COVID-19 campus closure and the College’s subsequent planning.
“COVID-19 solidified my decision because what I was really nervous about was not being on campus with my friends in the spring, but because of COVID-19, I figured that even if we were on campus, things wouldn’t be that exciting,” Maddie Miller ’21 said. “I definitely did not enjoy spending the last two semesters of college online, but it is what it is.”
Glover, a double major in biology and chemistry, has been considering graduating early on and off for the past year but thought she would be unable to complete her lab requirements. But with the shift to a module system this fall, she had the opportunity to enroll in three lab courses spread out over the two modules, rather than taking all three at once during a typical semester, and she was suddenly able to graduate in December.
“COVID-19 and the module system made it possible for me to graduate early,” Glover said. “And then I had to sit down with myself and think about why.”
“It's definitely not a decision I would have made had we not been in a pandemic,” Aslin said. Aslin, a physics major, felt that she could not justify sticking around for the spring term. “With the way my classes ended up — some classes I had wanted to take in the spring were canceled because of COVID-19 — and with my decision not to write a thesis, I just couldn’t really justify paying for another semester of classes if I didn’t need them.”
For Glover, the decision came down to her experience in online classes. “I did not like online school,” she said. “I was not succeeding or happy. It doesn’t replicate the Mount Holyoke experience fully. So in thinking about doing another spring term with online classes, even if we’d be on campus, I didn’t think it would be true to the rest of my Mount Holyoke experience. … I don’t think my experience is going to be worth paying the extra tuition.”
Other students had planned to graduate early before the pandemic interrupted campus life. Shanze Hasan ’21, an international relations major with a Nexus in law, public policy and human rights, had entered college with enough credits from high school to graduate after seven semesters.
“Since I had planned to graduate in December of 2020 before the pandemic hit, it did not have much of an impact on the decision,” Hasan said. “I do wish I was able to complete my last semester in person rather than online. I feel sad that I will be graduating from home like this. It would have been nice to complete the last few months of college with my fellow peers.”
Hasan is not the only December graduate with mixed feelings about graduating early.
“I’m really very sad and disappointed about it,” Aslin said. “There’s no way around it. It’s really not something I actively wanted to do, but with the ever-increasing possibility that spring semester classes would be online as well, I didn’t really see a point in paying for remote classes when I already have the credits to graduate.”
Aslin is graduating after six semesters at Mount Holyoke, a semester early and having taken a leave of absence during fall 2019 for an internship. “I’ve only spent a little over two years on campus,” she said. “I definitely regret missing out on lots of traditions because I had always assumed that they would be there for my senior year.”
In reflecting on her past three years at the College, Glover was quick to express gratitude for her positive experience pre-COVID-19. “I’m proud of myself,” she said. While upset that she will not have complete closure to her college years, Glover is grateful for the relationships she built with faculty during her time on campus. “I don’t get to say goodbye to my professors,” she said. “I want to say ‘thank you’ to all of them and mark how much they have meant to me and how much I have learned from all of them.” Her earlier positive experiences were a main factor in her decision to graduate early.
“I wanted to keep that as something special, and what I remember about this school,” she said. “I’m really sad, but I think that’s a broader sad feeling about missing Mount Holyoke, missing sports seasons, missing my friends.”
“It’s bittersweet, isn’t it?” Miller said about the end of her college career occurring amid the global pandemic. “I mean, this is in no way how I imagined leaving Mount Holyoke, after two and a half semesters on campus … and to never return to campus as a student after my study abroad [was] cut short. It feels [kind of] crappy, but again it’s the hand us college students currently got dealt.”
The Alumnae Association usually hosts a celebration event for December graduates following the College’s tradition of strawberries and champagne. But this year, there has not been any communication from the College about December graduation.
“I have not heard anything. I don't even know if I am graduating,” Glover said through a burst of laughter. “I haven't had any communication, except the Intent to Graduate Early form.”
“There is no separate Commencement ceremony midyear, although the Alumnae Association will welcome the midyear graduates into the Association soon after the conferral of their degrees,” Pyle said. “Students with October or March degree dates are invited to attend the May commencement that follows their completion — unless they had applied to and been allowed to participate early in the previous May’s commencement festivities. Thus this year’s March 2021 degree candidates, like our May 2021 degree candidates and our class of 2020, are, I'm sure, waiting for more information about commencement plans once the College can determine them.”
“I haven’t really heard anything about December graduation,” Aslin said. “When I applied to graduate, I indicated that I would be willing to walk in graduation in the spring if that’s able to happen, but I haven’t heard anything about that or what they’re planning on doing this December.”
“There’s less than a month left till December graduates graduate, and considering how close we are to that time, I haven’t heard from the College as much as I’d have liked to,” Hasan said.
As time at Mount Holyoke for December graduates comes to a close, the spring months still look partly uncertain. Aslin is applying for Ph.D. programs and job searching for a temporary spring position. Miller will continue working as a full-time live-in nanny while studying for the GRE and applying for jobs. Hasan wants to begin her professional career soon after graduating. Glover will continue working at a veterinary clinic through the winter and hopes to hike the Appalachian Trail in the spring.
While the end of college may be bittersweet, Glover remains positive and optimistic about the future.
“I’m excited,” she said. “I’m feeling ready to go.”