Everyone has heard of the infamous senioritis—that feeling of dread when high school could not come to an end any sooner and school starts to feel a little pointless. Senior Molly Vonk says that the class of 2021 is experiencing it in a whole new way due to the complications of this year.

“Every senior says that they get senioritis,” Molly said, “but it’s on steroids this year when we can just turn off our wifi and lay in bed, so having such prominent goals like the ones that I have is one of the few things that have kept me motivated through all of the ups and downs of this year.” 

Despite being slightly distracted by her home environment—her seven-person household can be distracting—Molly is living out her last year of high school with the comfort of knowing exactly what she wants to do when the long-awaited last day of high school finally arrives. 

Molly has decided to major in psychology. Her love for the knowledge about life that this major will give her as well as her deep love for being able to help not only the people around her but also close family and friends have been the main motivator of pursuing psychology. 

“When someone is special to me,” Molly said, “and I am special to them, they automatically have a very important place in my heart and my mind, and that’s where they will always belong. I am very passionate about helping them in whatever way they need.”

Molly’s family members are some of the many people who hold those special places in her heart. Their constant support of all of her decisions has built an everlasting bond that she is incredibly thankful for.  

“When it comes to my seven-person family,” Molly said, “they never once have doubted what I want to do with my profession. All the people around me, including my extended family, support me through my decisions both in college and my career but also in everything I do.”

Molly’s older sister in particular has been a major inspiration for her as she is currently in college for psychology as well.

Given that they both want to go into the same overall field, Molly and her sister use each other as a major resource in order to have discussions about things they learned in their different classes. This has helped Molly better grasp multiple of the concepts she has started to learn this year through her online psychology course. 

“We get to serve as a helper for each other,” Molly said. “Having her has helped me immensely because she has been able to guide me in the process of better understanding what is being [taught] in my own class, and with her, I can talk through and interpret things better.”

Along with being able to talk through some of the more intricate concepts of her class with her sister, the course she is currently taking has also provided Molly with the reassurance that she is making the best decision for herself. 

Without the course, Molly would not have had nearly as much knowledge going into college, and, in the long run, the extra work she is putting in now will ultimately set her up for a better path. 

“Some of the things I have learned already have helped me to open up to life and the world,” Molly said. “It’s such a good feeling when you can put a name on your emotions, which is a privilege I have learned from taking psychology this year, and I now am able to better figure out what is happening within my own mind and body.”

Through some of the concepts she has learned along with some real-life experiences, Molly now not only knows how to better understand the correlations within herself but also the people around her. 

One of her biggest goals is to help people do the things they love even when life makes it seem like those things aren’t worth it anymore. Molly hopes to show them why they should always stick with what makes them the happiest. 

“It’s hard to watch people lose what they love,” Molly said, “and it hurts even more watching people struggle, especially if it’s because of something they normally would thrive off of. It’s even harder to have that love disperse because of the stressors and trauma of everyday life, so I really want to help people not lose their love. Instead, I want to help people through their trauma and come out a better person because of it.”

Despite these unforeseeable problems that everyone faces, she hopes to enforce the idea that you should do what you love and what makes you happiest. 

Molly believes that she can achieve this goal, along with so many others, through psychology. The deep dive into psychology from this year will not only allow her to grow and have the resources she needs to take such a powerful major but also allow her to do what makes her the happiest. 

“Happiness is a choice,” Molly said, “and it’s your choice. In order to achieve that personal contentment, you have to be able to decide what you want to do for yourself, and all of these external factors of society, the world, and life are going to try and put you down, so you have to sit in stillness and figure out what you want to do with yourself because you are what’s most important.”