Whether you’re a freshman, sophomore, junior, or a senior, your class is most likely made up of people you’ve known for years. These are often people you went to elementary school or even preschool with. That could be more than 10 year’s worth of spending your school days together, under the same roof and even in the same classrooms. You’d think that after all of this time, everybody would know each other really well and get along. Of course, we all know this isn’t the case, but why do classes have to “unite” the most in their senior year of high school?

It’s most likely a mix of growing maturity and the upcoming graduation, but it’s remarkable, to me, how divided my class can be after knowing each other for so long. Some cliques and social groups will completely ignore each other, always have, and always will. You can’t force people to be friends with each other or even get along, but some of these groups have stayed the same since their early days of elementary school. These groups have changed and shifted, but the core has remained the same. New kids move in and old kids move out, some stick around through everything. Some might move on and make new friends, and move over to another group, but the core of these cliques forever remain. I can’t possibly foresee these core groups of kids I’ve known for years change completely; although this may be true, there doesn’t have to be such a vast divide.

After struggling through the drama and change of middle school, entering high school brings a totally new dynamic for many kids – they can meet new people, people in other grades, people they’ve never really been able to meet. Courses open to any grade can often have a mix of students from freshmen to seniors, giving these kids the opportunity to meet people they haven’t before. This is wonderful, letting people expand their circle of friendship and associate with people who may have similar interests. However, this just makes new groups, even though they maybe be more diverse than before.

Realistically, the only time these groups will even come close to coming together, and breaking down these social barriers, could be senior year. Even then it’s unlikely, but it amazes me that it can take so long for people to stop seeing their classmates as just a rung in the social ladder. We’ll interact with each other in class, but ignore each other in any other situation. Some people might be just flat out rude to someone that they might see as “less important” than them, purely because of who they are friends with – someone they barely know and don’t plan on getting to know.

It doesn’t need to take so long to at least get to know the people you’ve grown up alongside, and everyone’s better off if we can all just get along. There will always be conflict and there will always be people that don’t get along, but it’s not right that it takes until senior year to really know and get along with the people you’ve gone to school with for so long.