Twenty Twenty Five. A year with such significance that has been thrown at them since 2012. Yet, how strange the year felt, how foreign the idea and how excited they were.
As the 2025 school year comes to a close, the senior class faces the reality of graduation, the impending future that lies ahead.
Each year, a single student is selected to share a poem as part of the ceremony. This year, Huda Malik has been chosen for her outstanding poem that carries the concept of becoming throughout.
Malik’s poem began with a simple image of a graduation gown. In September, seniors were directed to take senior photos wearing a gown. Back then, it felt foreign as if the impending future did not feel real. Yet, now as a class they have grown into the idea and image, feeling natural in the gown and the reality of it all.
“I thought about the small, everyday moments that shape us and tried to thread those into something honest and reflective,” Malik commented in an interview with The Prowl,
The senior class rose to high school in the height of the pandemic with mask mandates and social distancing still in place. Back then, the future of education was questioned. What would the future look like?
Over the years, the senior class has grown both individually and together. Many do not know when this growth occurs; it is just a thing that appears.
“I wanted to explore how growth often arrives without announcement, stitched quietly into the everyday,” Malik stated.
Malik’s poem honors the energy it took to bring the senior class to the finish line and faces the reality of finding stability through uncertainty. Writing has allowed for Malik to reflect on the journey she individually and the class collectively have faced.
“Writing became a way to look back with intention, and reflect on the space between where we started and where we are now,” she remarked.
With twenty days left until graduation, seniors should take in the last remaining moments of their senior year. Oftentimes, the little things are missed or left behind in the space between now and the excitement of the future.
