Maryam Fassihi

What Emerson has given me is the people, and that’s what I love most about it. ELA was by far my favorite semester, it’s like one of the reasons that I chose that school—because it had this program and I knew I didn’t want to go to school all the way out in Los Angeles for four years.

I love LA. I felt so fulfilled there in my internship and in my classes. It’s sunny every day and I was so happy, so getting it cut short was truly awful. I keep thinking there’s nothing I can do about this and everyone is in the same position, so I’m going to move on. I thought I would be thrown into adulthood as soon as I graduated, but now I’ve been put on pause and it’s been really frustrating, but also maybe now I don’t feel rushed. There’s a lot of pros and cons. I know when someone looks at my resume and is like ‘Whoa, there’s a big chunk of time you’re not really doing something after graduation,’ they’re going to be like, ‘a pandemic happened’ because everybody knows the pandemic happened.

I loved Emerson and I will miss it immensely. It’s crazy to me that I won’t be going back there in the fall, and I think a big reason why that’s not computing with me is because it was cut so randomly short. There was no closure. But we’ll have a graduation eventually, I really do believe that. I’ll be excited for that day, and I think maybe when the day comes, it will feel real that I’m done with school.

I know they separate us and announce all the honors students first—which is so too much and makes me feel so elite—but I’m also excited for that proud moment and to hear my friends cheer and to cheer for my friends.