Walking down the halls as an underclassmen can be one of the most overwhelming and intimidating feelings one could experience. I wished for the days that I could call myself an upperclassman and have that leisurely feeling of walking down the halls knowing my friends and I could run the school.
My graduating class has been through so much adversity during our time on Eye Street that I can confidently say we know how to work through the bumps in life. One of the biggest noticeable differences within our community has been the overall change in culture at Gonzaga. More often than not, you’ll hear upperclassmen talk about how our culture has changed. Some say it’s due to Covid-19, and others will blame it on the administration, but our culture has drastically changed since our underclassmen days. Our school has gone from having teachers who care deeply about our students’ opinions to a culture where some students don’t even feel safe coming into school because they’ll get kicked out for having an untucked shirt.
Additionally, underclassmen don’t have that same respect for upperclassmen like my grade did back in our time. I used to praise the upperclassmen, treat them with respect and listen to what they say. Now, all upperclassmen get is back talk from the underclassmen, and it’s because of our change in culture that made it this way. I made this opinion when I saw underclassmen in the student section at games, and they were not moving to the back because they arrived there first. This seems reasonable, but I know that without question that I would’ve moved back for my seniors when I was an underclassman.
This sounds like very minor problems and may even seem a little too far fetched, but these are the small things that brought light to Gonzaga’s changing of culture. I’m proud of myself and my class for being able to acknowledge our school’s change and trying to fix it to become the school we all love so much. In my opinion, it feels like the Class of 2023 is the last class to understand how our culture was before the pandemic, and we want to try and fix it so we can proudly send our future kids here without worry.
This year, specifically, was tough. Whether it was losing in almost every single big sports game this year, losing some school privileges or even losing some of our own brothers, we all stuck together. We made petitions, prayer services and more to make change for the issues we thought needed to be addressed and fixed. Sometimes our power worked, but generally it was shut down, but we fought through it as a class.
The bonds I’ve made through the shared struggles within our community beats any other bonds I’ve made thus far. I’m proud of myself and my class for demonstrating composure when times were tough throughout the years, and I hope every future class can also make their voices heard and create strong bonds with each other. I challenge future classes to make a mark at Gonzaga, keep the culture strong and find a way to bring our community closer together.