It has been a very long four years. In those years, I have learned a lot about who I am as a person and lessons about school and life in general that I will use to my advantage as a grow old. But first, let me introduce myself.
Hi, I’m Katherine! I am a senior and I love writing for the Bellarion. I love to read, write, listen to and listen to music. My goal for this year was to produce at least 5 more stories than previous years. But, clearly, that didn’t happen.
But it’s okay! I think it is important to know when to set goals that you know that realistically you can do. My new goal now was to just write a story before the deadline for editors. Becoming a senior means that you are just ready to graduate and nothing else.
When I was writing this, I started thinking about how I was different in each grade, and how things changed for me. Then I thought to myself, what angle do I want to take when writing this? I decided I want to talk about things and lessons that I’ve learned. Maybe how certain events changed my perspective of things? Maybe talk about people that I’ve met? I was even considering talking about the two people I’ve had a crush on in my whole life in high school just to add to the experience I had here.
Then I decided, I wanted this to be straight to the point. The 5 things I’ve learned in high school that I wish someone told me when I was starting, and then I will explain what it was like to be a senior and be a part of Bel Air High School.
Lesson one: Do it NOW!!!!!!
In a lot of the classes that I’ve had in the morning, when they give me almost 5 assignments to do before the bell rings, I would either tell myself that I would do a couple (the ones worth more points) and leave the rest for when I need it, I would do it in another class, or I would tell myself I would do it at home. Now listen, you know yourself better than anyone else. If you know that the minute you get home, you’re going to get on it and do all those assignments, go ahead. Who am I to stop you? But if you know you’re one of those people where as soon as you step foot into the house your eyelids will start getting heavy, just do that work right now. And don’t be like me after you have done all your work. After I’m done doing a bunch of work either from another class or the current class, I’ll tell myself, “You know what? I’ve done all this work…I deserve to have this time off.” If you know you have that mentality, get rid of it right away. Gain some discipline. Train yourself to be able to work and you won’t have as much trouble getting stuff turned in in the future as the workload and difficulty increases.
Lesson two: Focus on things you’re bad at.
Reading is so fundamental. I’m saying this because when I was a freshman and for some of sophomore year, I had a very hard time keeping my focus when I was reading. Which wasn’t good because there wasn’t a singular class where I wasn’t reading in some way, shape, or form. When I read, I would always lose track of where I was, I would always forget what I just read about seconds later, I would stumble over words, and all in all I just wasn’t good at paying attention to what I was reading. Then I decided that I needed to lock in and pick up a book. I started going to our school library and picking books that seemed to be interesting and started reading books. It came to a point where I was reading a new book almost every other week, sometimes less sometimes more. This improved my reading so much, and I found books that I loved. If you know you’re bad at something, especially when you’re doing that thing every day, keep yourself in shape so that you’re not struggling as much.
Lesson three: It’s okay to be single.
Me personally, I’ve never been in a relationship during high school. However, I would see people around me bouncing from person to person. They would break up with someone one day, and then they will already be itching to be in a relationship with another person. I myself can confirm that I wanted to be in a relationship. Of all my four years of high school, I’ve had two major crushes. And looking back at it, I regret making them get involved with me. My self-esteem wasn’t all the way there, and I ended up looking for something in them that they were incapable of providing. Truth be told, at that time I didn’t even want to be in a relationship. I liked the idea of it though. When I’m surrounded by people who are in relationships and are constantly seeing people around you and friends being taken, I start to become self-conscious. I started to think that maybe there was something wrong with me. In reality, though, the peace I’ve been feeling the most was when I was in zero involvement romantically with a person. I quickly realized that I didn’t really like the person as much as I thought, just the idea of what they could be. If I realized that earlier, that would’ve saved me less stress and time on both parties wouldn’t have been wasted. The moral of the story is this is high school. Unless it’s friendship, worry about relationships later. This is not me saying don’t be in one, things happen. Two people can mutually like each other romantically and get together, that’s completely normal. It really gets to a point where being in a relationship is something that you end up chasing. If you do happen to be in one, don’t make your whole life evolve around them. Live your life for yourself, not your partner.
Lesson four: Be involved.
Join those extracurricular activities. Get into those clubs. One thing I regret about high school is that I didn’t really participate in any clubs and things of that nature. Even if you don’t think you’ll gain anything from it and even if you think it will be a waste of time and you would rather go home and go straight to sleep after school, just try it out. It looks good on your college applications if you want to go, you can gain new skills, and you can even meet new people. Use everything the school provides to your advantage. Don’t be afraid to try something new. If you don’t like it, you can simply leave. At least you can say you did this thing. Keep up with what is going on. Me saying this is kind of ironic because I was never the type to do that, but my point still stands. Trust me, it’ll help a lot.
Lesson five: Start looking for careers.
Me personally, 3 out of 4 of the years I’ve attended high school, I didn’t have a clue in the world what I wanted to do. I wanted whatever I could do where I didn’t have to have a doctorate degree in to make a livable wage. I was very uninterested in most things (hence why you should do clubs and extracurricular activities to find out and learn what you like) and I honestly wasn’t thinking about my future most of the time. I was mostly thinking about getting through the week and thinking about what I would eat when I get home from school every day. If I had known that I wanted the career that I’m going for right now, there are certain classes I would have taken more seriously and certain classes that I would have rushed to take. Do your research on careers. You don’t have to automatically know what you want to be, but knowing early will set you up in a good position. I also want to go back to what I said earlier; use the resources the school gives you. If you don’t know what type of college you want to go to, there are literally options in Naviance to do college visits (someone from different colleges coming to our school to talk about that college). They also have a bunch of scholarships you can apply for. Do not ignore them, fill in those scholarship applications. It’s free money. This helped me immensely. It also gives you a better chance to be accepted into the college you want to go to because they note who attends and it shows genuine interest in the place. You do not have to be a senior to do those things, you can do it at any time in high school. Even if you don’t plan to go to college, plan on where you are going or what you will do after school.
Closing Thoughts
Lastly, I want to talk about my life as a senior. Time goes by way faster than it seems. I still think to myself sometimes things like, “I just want to graduate and leave.” Being a senior, you’re just done. But then after that I think, woah, I’m an adult. Like, I’m pushing 20. What do you mean I’m not going to be a teen forever? I’m turning 19 this year…I really don’t want to grow up. I really don’t want all these responsibilities. I’ll be basically on the road to fending for myself. With all this being said, I suppose what I’m trying to say is enjoy your youth. I’m still young but still…enjoy your high school years. Put yourself first. Do nothing without intention. Don’t hear “plan ahead” and close your ears. You don’t want to start scrambling for solutions at the last minute. It feels better when you know you are secure, and you know what you are trying to accomplish. I’m still learning, but trust I will take these lessons I’ve learned while being at Bel Air and do my best to implant them into my life because it will only get harder from here.
Before I talk your head off, I’ll end it here. Goodbye, Bel Air.