Tell Your Story – Natalie Kelly

Today’s post in the “Tell Your Story” project comes from Natalie Kelly.

Hello! My name is Natalie Kelly, and I am a senior at Iowa State majoring in Event Management with a minor in Public Relations. I am from Edina, Minnesota, and previously worked at Parks Library in the Instruction Department helping oversee Library 160. Library student employees were given the opportunity to share our experiences during the COVID-19 outbreak and reflect on how this pandemic has impacted our lives. This is a very stressful time for everyone, and it is important to keep communicating/interacting with one another.

As of the beginning of April, I have moved back home to Minnesota and packed up most of my apartment in Ames. This is not how I envisioned my senior year to end at all, and I am extremely heartbroken about it. I saw a tweet that read along the lines of “Imagine watching the best movie you have ever seen, and 20 minutes before the end, the movie suddenly shuts off and you never get to see the end of it. That is what happened to my college experience.” That tweet summed up how I have been feeling about losing my senior year, and losing my chance to fully say goodbye to Iowa State. I wish I could be a freshman/sophomore/junior and have the ability to return to ISU when all of this is over, and I am envious of those who get to do so.

I remember first hearing of the COVID-19 outbreak sometime in late January, early February, but did not pay much attention to it. It is easy to ignore something that is not directly affecting you, and even more-so as an American citizen who hasn’t experienced something this life-changing. We collectively brushed the outbreak off, saying it was ‘just the flu’, ‘it will die out in China, it will never make it to the U.S.’, ‘Our healthcare system would never let it get that bad’, and more denials. The change from this rhetoric to today’s happened faster than I could possibly imagine. One week I was preparing for my senior spring break, shopping at the mall for a last-minute look, to the next having to cancel my trip and that very mall being closed. It all happened so fast, giving us all perspective of how quickly our daily lives can be altered.

My sister and I are first-generation college graduates, and I was looking forward to walking across the stage at Hilton and accepting my diploma in front of my entire family. I understand the severity of the situation and the reasons for commencement being cancelled, but it is still disheartening. I have had a lot of anxiety about what is to come after I ‘graduate’ from ISU. I am graduating with a degree in Event Management, a job field which is being severely affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. All the companies I was in talks with before the outbreak are no longer hiring, and are not planning to in the foreseeable future due to financial losses from event cancellations. With student debt looming and urges from my parents to find a stable source of income, I have taken on a great deal of stress in a short amount of time without any time to prepare.