Rosary’s sophomores began their first official in-person school year on Aug. 16, 2021.

When the Covid-19 pandemic started, schools all over the world were forced to adapt to new teaching methods. Rosary Academy, in particular, went through several modifications to accommodate to Covid-19 regulations. Such modifications included Zoom classes, different hybrid schedules, split lunches, and more.

Due to coronavirus, Rosary’s students could not go to school full-time from March 2020 to February 2021.

Fortunately, during August of 2021, Rosary students were able to begin their first year of full-time school since the pandemic started.

For the class of 2024, this also happened to be the first year of full-time high school. Last year, they began their freshman classes on Zoom. Now, the sophomores have begun their first official in-person school year.

The rush back to full-time in-person school surely caused a bit of struggle—especially for the sophomores, who started high school with online classes. Natalia Chavez ’24 said, “It’s definitely more of a struggle to be honest. The workload is a lot more now, and since we’re now sophomores, expectations are way higher. I think it’ll take a bit to get used to, but I’ll manage.”

Nia Delacruz ’24 shared how she felt about the start of sophomore year: “I’m happy that school is pretty much back to normal. I don’t know if anyone realizes it, but this is our first actual start of a high school year. How we’re starting this year is probably how we would have started last year if the pandemic never happened. I feel like we missed out a bit.”

The freshmen arguably did miss out a bit. For example, because of Covid, they missed freshman WOW, the annual Rosary tradition in which the freshmen have an entire class sleepover in the Karcher Center to promote sisterhood and bonding with the new students.

Some of them also mentioned that with the previous short year, they don’t feel like actual sophomores yet.

Madison Verdugo ’24 said, “To be honest, I don’t feel like a sophomore at all. Last year felt like it went by so quickly, and I’m still trying to get used to a ‘normal’ school life. Seeing freshman at the school still weirds me out because I still don’t feel like I’ve been here a whole year yet.”

Madison Lising ’24 similarly shared, “I don’t feel like an actual sophomore. This feels like a continuation of freshman year since we weren’t in person the whole year.”

However, now that students are back on campus, Royals get to appreciate events that were missed out on last year. Matilda Geronimo ’24 mentioned, “It’s nice to have events that we weren’t able to have last year, such as rallies and big sister little sister lunch.”

Although sophomores might have had their freshman year affected by the pandemic, they’re still doing a great job handling their second year of high school. Despite their initial troubles, the sophomores will still definitely find ways to make the most of their high school years!