by Elizabeth Flood

This article was updated at 10:23 PM on Dec. 15.

Senior year is supposed to be a time to celebrate accomplishments as a student and the culmination of their academic careers. 

For many, though, it can be an inner battle figuring out which path to take. Grad school? Travel? Corporate America? For the first time, life is not measured by marking periods or semesters, but more so by promotions, accomplishments and new experiences. 

Seniors at the University of Maryland are gearing up to tackle their final semesters, and some are ready to graduate at the winter commencement in December. 

Nathan Dresin is a senior finance major from Baltimore who’s been in the Robert H. Smith School of Business for the past four years, plans to move to New York City and work as a financial services analyst upon graduation.

“I think UMD has decent resources, especially at Smith, but they don’t do an awesome job at promoting them,” Dresin said. 

For his job search, he used “HireSmith,” a platform for finding jobs exclusive to the business school. Dresin said he had to navigate this platform as well as the job search process on his own. 

“I went through the application process kind of blindly. I would say that the resources are there but it felt like most of the interview preparation was done on my own,” Dresin said. 

In addition to platforms like HireSmith, Dresin said a huge part of landing a job is through networking, which most students have to do independently. 

“I feel like I have spent countless hours networking on my own. I used to look up dozens of companies, see what UMD alum worked there and then message them asking to get coffee or have a Zoom meeting.” Dresin said.

UMD seniors have had an unorthodox college experience. Most were sent home in March 2020 — their sophomore year — for the remainder of the spring semester. And all of their junior year was held online. 

“I feel like we never got to fully develop as college students. We were young sophomores and blinked and now [are] about to be thrown into the real world,” said Samira Mitias, a cell biology and genetics major on a pre-med track who’s graduating in late December. 

Mitias plans to study for the MCAT , which is a standardized test for prospective medical students, while her peers are finishing up their last semester this spring. She’ll also be working part time for the Federal Drug Administration doing research in their foodborne pathogen lab.  

“I definitely feel like I missed out on college because of COVID-19. Academic wise it was my first semester taking major courses so it was hard to learn the basics being fully online,” Dresin said. “I feel like I learned a lot of the skills I will need for my job by myself.” 

Alexander Smith, a masters student in the business school, took advantage of being eligible for the lacrosse team even though it’s his fifth year at UMD. 

Smith said he was “heartbroken” when he got the news that the season was over back in March of 2020. “

“Although I am thankful to finish out my lacrosse career at UMD, I definitely feel like the coronavirus changed things,” he said.

Smith is an incoming risk analyst at Goldman Sachs and plans to move to Hoboken, N.J. in May. He wasn’t able to study abroad.

“Experience-wise one of the things I was looking forward to most was [studying] abroad so missing out on that was definitely hard,” he said. 

Dresin said he wants to plan a trip to explore Europe before starting his job as a financial analyst, but is now worried that the omicron COVID-19 variant may affect that as well. 

“I do feel like I missed out on opportunities here at UMD, but I’m excited to move on and start working in the real world,” Dresin said.

Featured image: As the sun sets over Prince Frederick Hall, it sets on the semester for UMD seniors as well. Photo by Joel Lev-Tov.