Due to the shelter-in-place order, the graduating Falcon newspaper staff of 2020 decided that the senior magazine will be published as a website rather than the usual print magazine. The changed format was primarily a result of the uncertainty around being able to print the magazine and send it out to families before the end of the school year. 

“Originally we were unsure if we’d be able to get print senior magazines out so we wanted to use a different platform,” Falcon editor-in-chief senior Jeffrey Xu said. “Even though distribution of print copies is possible, we felt that having the web-based platform truly encapsulates what it’s like to be the [graduating] class that had to go through COVID-19.”

Xu said that the contents of the publication will remain similar, but that due to the online platform, it will be formatted differently. 

“Due to no need to fit stories on a layout, word counts are really flexible now, which is nice because the staff can write their stories however long they wish,” he said.

The website will consist of a Next-Ups section, farewell letters from teachers, senior personal columns, student profiles, senior “wills” and college maps among other sections. 

The online senior magazine will be released between late May to early June, but the release date has not been set. 

Falcon editor-in-chief Ananya Vadlakonda is happy that even given the current circumstances, the senior class will still be able to have the senior magazine to look back on their high school experiences. 

“It’s been difficult grappling with the fact that we’re not going to have a proper end to our senior year,” Vadlakonda said. “So we’re really hoping that the senior mag helps fill that void, serving as a proper goodbye with a compilation of memories from the past four years that are going to stay with us for the rest of our lives.”