In March, I packed up a few things from my room at Oxford University—books, shoes, clothes—enough for the three-week Easter break. Months later, I am still at home with my parents.
Throughout the spring, I took classes by Zoom and final exams in my bedroom. In June, I graduated in the backyard. I returned to Oxford for only two hours, to collect my remaining belongings and move out for the last time. The bushes and lawn were overgrown. The food-delivery drivers had vanished. Everywhere on campus was quiet.
Like other 2020 graduates, this was not the ending I imagined. At the start of the academic year, I told myself I would walk every street in Oxford, take pictures of every beautiful garden, drink tea in every café, and eat in every dining hall on campus, especially the Harry Potter one at Christ Church. This was my last chance to see, hear, touch, and taste it all—and I missed it.
This felt like such a loss because education is so much more than a reading list or a syllabus. For many of us, college is our first real experience with independence. We set our own schedules—even small decisions like what to eat or how to spend a Sunday are thrilling. In my early days at Oxford, a senior student told me that university life is sleeping, studying, and socializing—and you can only pick two. I found it hard to do even two, so study and sleep were mostly sacrificed.
I attended cricket matches and college balls. I joined the Pakistan Society and the Oxford Union. Far too often, my friends convinced me to abandon my studies and go to a debating society or a pub. I don’t drink, but being the only sober one in a group of students arguing over Brexit is its own fascination.
I watched Rick and Morty or The Big Bang Theory and left my assignments until the last possible minute, submitting many uncommendable essays. I stayed awake until 5 a.m. to see the sun rise over the gardens. I still haven’t mastered laundry.
I listened to inspiring lectures from some of the world’s greatest thinkers and leaders. But I learned as much or more from my peers. And I am still learning every day from young people.
Like me, they step out into a reeling world—a global pandemic, an economic recession, racism, inequality, and a most uncertain future. According to researchers at UCLA, the class of 2020 may not recover from professional and financial setbacks for 10 years.
Yet we have long understood that a lot of work will fall on our shoulders. We watched while those in power failed to protect refugees and religious minorities, stop attacks on schools, ensure justice for Black and brown people, or even acknowledge that climate change exists. We have grown up knowing that the world we inherit will be broken.
In many ways, we are more prepared for the current crisis because we’ve had a lot of practice fighting for change. I was 11 years old when I started advocating for girls’ education in Pakistan—and 15 when the Taliban tried to kill me for speaking out.
