For the last 10 years at Berkeley High School, Senior Sunrise has been a sacred tradition for BHS seniors to watch the sun come over the horizon and build unity together as a senior class. Beginning in 2015, the tradition started as a way to promote community within the senior class, and to limit the divides that kept students from interacting with one another in school. The tradition has become one of the most important of the senior class events, as it represents the coming of a new school year and the beginning of the last year seniors will spend together. Seniors are encouraged to use this event to branch out and talk to new people outside of their existing friend groups, in order to help the senior class become more thoroughly connected.
“(Senior Sunrise) connects us just because we're bonding over the fact that we're seniors now. Our class didn't mean anything before but now we're seniors, it's a big deal, and we're all just collectively ready to start whatever comes after high school,” BHS senior Luca Small said.
Small attended the event by carpooling with his friends, and like many other seniors, found the event to be successful in bringing the senior class together as one. “I think it's just trying to collectivize the senior class, you know, trying to eliminate some of the cliques, make it a little more community,” Small said.
Though sacrificing a late start Monday morning is definitely a lot to ask — especially from seniors — many seniors who attended found the experience and event to be more than worth it. After successfully completing three years of high school, seniors felt that having a chance to share the moment of entering senior year collectively, was something they were happy to lose two hours of sleep over. “I think that this event connected the senior class in a way where not a lot of people who would usually hang out together all got into one space at the same time and were able to not only meet each other, but also see each other in a different setting than school,” said BHS senior Leilou Etienne.
Despite the sunrise being drowned out by the fog and clouds, seniors still enjoyed hot chocolate and snacks while they gathered together to celebrate their own personal and collective achievements made along their years at BHS. “Senior Sunrise represents a strong-knit senior community and the accomplishments that all these kids have made to get to senior year,” BHS senior Ezmond Pioscobar said, “The senior class doing something all together creates a shared experience, which therefore creates a tighter community."
Throughout this last year of high school, seniors will all be dealing with the same struggles of deciding on a post-high school route, separating from their friends, and creating an entirely new life for themselves beyond BHS. This event, organized to showcase the importance of unity during these last nine months together as a class, was a success in that it brought together students from different friend groups, communities, and cliques.
“Senior Sunrise represents the awakening, the awakening of the incoming seniors coming into the new year and just opening up the new year with a fun event that everyone can do easily and (is) free,” Etienne said, “I think that the importance of this event was to bring everyone together and make it so that people understood the importance of their senior year, not only academically, but also socially, and that senior year is a great time to connect with new people and have great experiences.”