In just a few short weeks, the seniors will be leaving high school and beginning to prepare for their futures. They all have a wide variety of plans on where they’re going to end up and what they want to do with their lives, but they all have one thing in common: they’re leaving high school, the place that has been their home for the past four years.
Senior Lydia Morey, who will be going to American University (AU) for a CLEG major (Communication, Legal Institutions, Economics, and Government), has definitely been feeling that bittersweet feeling of moving on.
“Senior year has definitely brought everyone together,” Lydia said. “I’ve made so many more friendships this year, even across grades, and I’ve made a lot more friendships that are going to be harder to leave behind. [Leaving high school] is going to be sad and scary, but it’s also a really exciting new chapter because I know I’ll have so many more new opportunities.”
As Lydia has spent the past four years growing as a person and getting to know many people, it can be a weird experience to leave the place that has been her home for such a long time. High school has taught her how to be a more confident person in and out of the building, and now it’s time for her to take that confidence outside of high school.
In high school, there are many ways to stay busy, such as spending time with friends and getting a job. However, school sports are also a very common way to stay busy and a great way to make friends. Senior Henry McNamara, who is going to Hope College to major in business and to play lacrosse, found that playing lacrosse throughout high school has changed his life in many ways.
“I think [doing lacrosse in high school] made me work harder,” Henry said. “Sometimes in lacrosse, you don’t always see success, and I think when you don’t see success, you try to learn from your failures to create success. As a couple of seasons and games have gone by, learning from those failures has created more success.”
Henry has played lacrosse since he was in elementary school, and he has become very experienced throughout his time playing. He got recruited to play lacrosse by many schools, but ultimately chose Hope partly because of the atmosphere and connections that he has with the team.
The atmosphere on any team is important, but it is especially important in a high school team. These are formative years, and any high schooler needs to learn how to work with people and work as hard as they can for each other.
“[My team] hasn’t just helped me as a player, but also as a coach,” Henry said. “Sometimes I help the underclassmen, because I know that the seniors helped me when I was a freshman. If I help them, it’ll get passed down, it’ll all work out. I want their road to be as clean as possible.”
As Henry has grown throughout his years of high school, from being a player to learning how to help lead his teammates, he has become more of a leader in and out of lacrosse.
However, in high school, not everyone plays a sport. There are many other ways to grow as a person independently and through school. Senior Joaquin Dorado Gonzales, who is going to Davenport University for accounting, has learned this through his classes at FHC.
“I think one thing [that has impacted me as a person] is that I took classes that I wasn’t supposed to take,” Joaquin said. “For example, I took US History as a freshman with a bunch of sophomores, and the next year I took Civics with a bunch of freshmen. I don’t really regret that looking back, because I got to know some upperclassmen, and I also got to know a lot of underclassmen.”
Joaquin’s time in high school has taught him about the community that surrounds him. There are so many people in the school, and not everyone gets to meet each other. Taking classes that he wasn’t essentially supposed to take led him to meeting new people that he might not have gotten to meet otherwise.
As the seniors begin to leave the high school that they’ve put so much effort into and leave the people that they’ve gotten to know so well, it can be scary to move away from everyone else. However, there are ways to know that they’re going to the correct place, such as college visits.
“I did a college program at [AU] last summer, so I’ve already stayed on their campus before,” Lydia said. “I think that gives me some confidence that I’m going to the right place, so I know that I’m going to enjoy my time there. But changing from an every day class model to being more independent in my studies will definitely be different.”
It’s weird to leave and change the routine that everyone is used to, but in the end, it’ll be worth it. The seniors will hopefully begin to feel less burnt out after four years of non-stop work, and they will be able to get a break.
“Senioritis is real,” Joaquin said. “Sometimes it’s not the want to graduate, it’s just that after four years, you deserve a break. Take a break, take a few minutes for yourself; it shouldn’t always be school, school, school.”
