Girlhood in a Pandemic: 5 Friends Share Their Experience

This piece was produced in partnership with Evoke, a place to start conversations, amplify new voices, and forge stronger bonds between change-makers.

Before COVID-19 hit the world, you would find me and my friends at a restaurant or party almost every weekend. We are all involved in many extracurriculars from dance troupe to orchestra and model UN, as we all love staying busy and being active in things we are passionate about.

March 13 was the last day of school for most kids in Chicago and we all believed that we would be back to normal within two weeks, but we ended up finishing the entire school year virtually. It was a difficult transition moving to remote learning, but even weirder having all friendship interactions online as well.

I pride myself on my friendships and the people I surround myself with; it says the most about me. Four of my closest friends and I recently discussed our main takeaways — negative and positive — from the year so far. On Sept. 20, I talked to my friends Nairobi Toombs, 17, who attends Whitney Young High School, and Ava Viti, 16, who attends Jones College Preparatory High School, and on Sept. 21, I talked to two of my University of Chicago Laboratory Schools classmates, Bella de la Cerna, 17, and Iris Xie, 17.

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