The last two months have been anything but normal for Cambridge High School senior Bradleigh Schaefer.
"It's definitely been a really hard experience," she said in a Zoom interview with me Thursday, April 30.
Schaefer's been taking both high school and college classes online over the past two months. She's taking college classes to get credit, so she can go into college this summer as a sophomore.
"I could complete it in three years," Schaefer said of her course work. "It just depends on what I'm feeling when I get there. If I want to minor in something, I've thought about a minor in Ag Communications. I don't know what I want to do yet."
Schaefer was supposed to be going to Iowa State University in the summer to major in Ag Communications. She hopes to become an Ag Teacher someday, but the question now is, will she go to Ames in August of this year?
"This is something that I ask myself truthfully every single day," she said. "I'm hoping so. I have a lot of hope that I am, seeing as the restrictions are a little bit tighter in the state of Illinois and a little looser in the state of Iowa, I do have a little bit more hope that Iowa will open its schools, so I kinda do think I'll go. I do."
Schaefer hopes the coronavirus pandemic settles down by the end of the summer. She was the chapter president of her high school's FFA (Future Farmers of America) program this year, looking forward to her last few days being able to wear her blue FFA jacket and handing over the gavel to her successor, but she believes the class of 2020 will have success in the future, whether they graduate in person or not.
Leaders at Iowa State say they plan to have students return to campus in the fall, but there's no word when an announcement is going to be made.
Schaefer was the winner of Illinois' Ag Communications Proficiency Contest Wednesday, April 29. She's also been on Good Morning Quad Cities monthly over the past year for our segment called "Ag in the Classroom."
