As the school year comes to an end, I asked other seniors about advice they had for the juniors or underclassmen as they move up through their high school careers. Many seniors offered advice regarding the social aspect of high school, emphasizing the importance of balancing social, work, fun and school, as well as being involved in sports or clubs and creating meaningful connections with teachers. One senior said “don’t convince yourself that you don’t need to make new friends senior year, because it’s ok to test new things out even when you know that the end of high school is near.” Another senior said to not let other people's opinions affect you, while a different senior said to delegate your time properly and not procrastinate.

My own advice is to learn to take up space and advocate for yourself. I feel like I sort of allowed myself to be walked over because I was afraid of voicing my opinions and causing the teachers a hassle. But honestly, I think that school teaches a blind conformity to students- students are expected to sit quietly for hours at a time to maximize their learning, and are punished for interrupting the learning time of others. And we’re all taught the same things, at the same desks, in the same way, when in reality, many of us do our best learning when we’re not sitting at a desk all day, cooped up indoors. And through this, many of us are taught to be a shell of a person, to be compliant with basically everything in order to keep the peace for others. But as I applied to colleges throughout the year, and read through endless prompts of “Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?” and “If you could trade lives with someone (fictional or real) for a day, who would it be and why?” I realized that the blind conformity that has been emphasized from preschool to high school has no benefit to the student other than if they go into the world that is corporate America. Colleges, as well as alternative paths, search for people with a strong sense of self, who have cultivated their personality to encompass everything that they believe in, not just what they are taught by the textbook. I believe that school at its core is flawed, and the system needs to adapt a lot in order for it to help each student individually. It was challenging for me to learn to stand up for myself, because in certain ways I felt punished and judged, but in other ways that made me all the more willing to break outside of the expectations created for me by the school system. My advice is truly to just break out of the mold, to grow beyond the expectations of what you are supposed to be and what you are supposed to act like in school.

One senior even said to run while you can. While I’m not necessarily encouraging that, I do think that, especially within senior year, it is extremely important for students to have a balance between school, work, and social life, because high school is one of the last times that you attend school with everyone from your middle school and elementary school, as well as one of the last times you are allowed to just be a kid.