Dear Community,

My name is Oscar Smith and I’m a senior at University Preparatory Charter School for Young Men. I will be attending the University of Akron majoring in Mechanical Engineering. This pandemic has impacted me in a major way. Everything that I was looking forward to was cancelled. Senior ball, senior class trip, outdoor track, and even various college visits that I planned were called off. When school announced that we would be moving to online learning I thought it was going to be easier because there were no distractions, but it is not what I thought. I learned that I’m a person that needs to be in a classroom to actually get a feel for things. Everything has been a challenge for me these past couple weeks, but I’m making sure I stay on top of my work.

Also, I plan on joining the track and field team at Akron so I work out occasionally when I have the motivation because I know when I go to college in the fall workouts are going to kick my butt. As far as graduation is concerned, I would always hear my family members talk about walking the stage and how amazing the feeling is and to not be able to actually walk the stage kills me. I always envisioned school administrators calling my name to get my advanced regents diploma and my family going crazy in the crowd. To learn that is not going to happen had me at an all-time low. No one really understands how we feel but other seniors. So I wish every senior that’s experienced this good luck with their future endeavors no matter what route they take.

Sincerely,

Oscar Smith