“I started my college career in unexpected times,” said Fatma ElRefaei, a first-year international student from Egypt. “I was shocked to learn that my cohort wouldn’t make it to campus as planned. But I’m extremely grateful for F&M for working hard to give us as close to a college experience as possible.”

“The mock projects were really cool,” said senior Diana Rushemeza, a public health major who participated in F&M in Science and Research. “It was great to put the conversations about career paths into a tangible project."

“It was honestly the best four years of my life. The friends that I made at F&M, they’re still my best friends,” said Hayk Gyokchyan, an Armenian who spent most of his childhood in Lebanon before attending high school in the United States. 

“I’ve always wanted to make a poem that was like a living organism,” said Jericho Brown, who led a virtual poetry workshop for the F&M community. “I wanted to make a poem like a person, like a life. And no life is all sunshine and no life is all rain. And so I’m always going back and forth between those poles.”

“You’re on a new step in your journey. You’re opening a new chapter in your life. And, Class of 2024, you are starting all new types of traditions,” President Barbara Altmann told incoming first-years during the only virtual Convocation ceremony in F&M's history.