In early May, eight Santa Clara University seniors were still living under the same roof. But when they sat down to compare calendars for the weeks to come before graduation, they realized their lives had already begun to separate.
Annika Nallaballi ’26, Clara Kiene ’26, Harper Yang ’26, Izzy Furuhashi ’26, Jeni Deneen ’26, Morgan Srednick ’26, Sarah Banauch-Mayer ’26 and Zoe Park ’26 sat down together at their house, which they had dubbed the “Lagoon.” Their schedules were filled with assignments, work shifts, club commitments and celebrations. Only one date appeared on everyone’s calendar: June 13, commencement.
The two hour house meeting soon became a massive scheduling project for last hangouts. “We literally went through every single day leading up to graduation,” said Clara. Out of the remaining one and a half months, they only found seven evenings when all eight of them were available.
For two years, the housemates had shared closets, late-night kitchen conversations and the small comfort of knowing who was home. Now, the life that had once happened automatically had to be scheduled to ensure that the friends could have a proper goodbye.
50 days did not feel like enough time to get proper closure. So they made a rule: “the red card system.”
Each housemate received a red card with her name on it. When someone played her card, she could choose an activity—something already planned or something new—and everyone had to show up.
“They can either play it for an activity that is already happening, or they can come up with their own activity,” said Kiene. “It’s a way to ensure that we actually do the things that we’ve been all trying to do the last, I would say, even year.”
Park played the first card on May 28, calling the house to Magpie and Tiger Karaoke.
It was quickly followed by two others. The next day, Kiene called a Lagoon talent show, and Srednick took everyone to Napa that weekend.
According to Yang, the Napa trip included the first dinner all eight housemates had shared outside of birthdays. After two years of living together, some of their most intentional time as a full group came only when they were preparing to leave.
Yet for the Lagooners, as Yang jokingly refers to them, while the goal was to play all the cards, the system was much more about the process than about getting the task done. The planning itself became a way of navigating graduation, cherishing the bittersweet moments as much as they could and giving their time at Santa Clara University a proper closure.
“I think it’s just the radical acceptance,” said Kiene, commenting on graduation.
Yang said the hardest part was imagining a future where that simple, everyday knowledge of one another disappeared.
“We’re so intertwined in each other’s lives right now, it’s gonna be like a really scary realization when it’s like, oh, your life is separate, and I don’t know things about it,” said Yang.
And the red card system was their way of navigating that process.
There is no singular point where graduation becomes “real.” Senior year can feel just like another year in college—the same major classes, the regular work shifts, club meetings and Friday night hangouts.
Even as the housemates tried to hold onto Lagoon, senior spring kept moving around them. There were department awards, business school send-offs, senior toasts and graduation photos. The final weeks were full of celebrations, but each one also marked another step away from the life they had shared.
“Do we feel like it’s gonna hit us as soon as we go wherever we’re going? Or do you think it’s going to hit us in September when we’re like, wait, no, this isn’t summer break?” asked Yang to Nallaballi. “Because for the last three years, we have been dispersing for three months and like living our own lives and not seeing each other, just like catching up over texts.”
This time, the goodbye is real. This time they won’t be coming back for fall quarter.
“Even though we’re friends and, of course, you want to be like, ‘Oh my God, no, I’ll fly to you,’ and, ‘No, no, no, you’ll visit. You’ll visit,’ there is also this weird understanding of, ‘No, I’m probably never going to see you again,’” said Kiene.
Kiene said the next time all eight housemates might be together could be Grand Reunion, Santa Clara University’s alumni event with milestone celebrations every five years after graduation.
“But five years seems so long. It’s longer than how long we’re in college,” said Yang. “And we’re at the point in our life where like five years is the difference between like us now and like marriage with a kid on the way.”
There were also slots untaken. Various windows were marked on the calendar for red card opportunities, but a couple slipped by. By commencement, only three of the eight red cards had been played. Five cards were left unused.
But the unfinished cards became part of the goodbye. They showed how hard it is to close a life that was never lived like a checklist. The cards did not stop the ending. They gave the housemates a way to face it together.
“I feel like if you didn’t have those, it would leave you hanging or it would make you feel like you miss it more because you didn’t have that goodbye,” said Yang.
For Kiene and the rest of the house, having a system for mandated time together was vital. “So many of us just don’t really think twice about filling up our schedules,” said Kiene. “If it’s open, we’re gonna fill it.”
For Kiene, the red cards also reflected a piece of advice from her mother.
“You have the rest of your life to work,” said Kiene. “You are never gonna be a college student again. So just focus on doing the stuff that college students do.”
On June 13, the eight housemates joined the rest of Santa Clara’s class of 2026 at commencement. The calendars they once compared around the same table would split into different cities, jobs, routines and plans. The lagoon would empty. The remaining red cards would no longer hang on the same fridge.
Still, the cards had done what they were meant to do. They made them choose one another while they all still shared the same home before the end arrived.
Some goodbyes, it turns out, take longer than 50 days.
