As my time as a high schooler winds down to an end, I have come to contemplate whether my high school experience has been objectively enjoyable. I’ve weighed the good and the bad, trying to determine whether or not I have had fun being a high school student. 

I think back to the days when I was a naive middle school girl looking forward to being a mature high schooler when in reality, it’s not that simple. I always put high school on this pedestal thinking that those four years would be the best years of my life. Well, I can say that 11th grade has for sure not helped me accomplish my eighth-grade self’s dreams.

I assumed that I would magically walk through those high school doors and have the most exciting and spontaneous experiences of my life. I can say that I have had those moments, but I have also had some bad ones. To start simply, there were ups and downs with friends. High school overall will be filled with shifts in friend groups that will make you feel like your whole world is crumbling to an end. There will be the most idiotic arguments about issues people will forget about five minutes later. You will walk into class on the first day of school hoping you know someone. You will step into the unknown of the cafeteria trying to find a table of people you may fit in with. It’s all daunting and feels like you are constantly grasping for air. At the end of the day, it is normal. Why do you think every coming-of-age or teen-themed movie goes accordingly? You make new friends, fight, then people resolve those problems, and everyone lives happily ever after.

We all enter high school more conscious and aware of the world around us. We are more independent, and it is truly our first time socializing while being seen as young adults with our own opinions and paths. We are just figuring it all out. 

Another problem I am trying to figure out is school itself. Waking up every morning to go learn for six hours straight and then go do another hour, or sometimes two hours, of homework is a brutal cycle. Ask any adult, and they will say enjoy the simplicity of it while you can, and while that changes my perspective positively for a short period of time, to be quite honest, it is not fun when it’s all you know. 

Half of high school is fun, and half of it is truly putting the work into getting good grades or just trying to make friends. 

The good half is full of the most heart-fulfilling things, like those friends that finally make you laugh and feel appreciated. Getting your license and blasting music with your friends. Getting an A on a test you studied way too much for might not seem exciting for some, but for me, it is. 

I’ve learned that high school is what you make it. It isn’t perfect, but that is life. I always remind myself to push through the bad times knowing that there is good right around the corner.