We are the generation that grew up watching movies and TV shows that depicted a range of high school experiences. We were the generation that witnessed High School Musical and no doubt had high hopes that high school would be as perfect and fun like in the movies and shows on Disney.  

      Now I am a senior, about to graduate in a world of coronavirus and a monumental student debt virus crisis. 

      Was high school everything I expected? 

            Absolutely not.

      Was it magical and amazing in its own unexpected ways? 

           Yes.

      When we pass through high school, we each want something to be remembered by. A legacy; like scoring the game-winning point or being prom queen. I was thinking about my legacy and how people would remember me. Would it be as the girl who passed out at the Homecoming football game sophomore year and had to be taken out off the track in an ambulance? 

      Probably, and the sophomore year me was mortified, so embarrassed and super terrified of what everyone thought about me and my terrible lungs and their tendency to stop working. Something high school did teach me that the movies often skip is some self-confidence. 

      Everyone enters high school with certain expectations and often of cliche goals like to be the popular girl or the athletic jock or smart valedictorian. But something I have learned since then is it’s not what label you have, or what you wore or anything like that, it’s what you accomplished, the friends you made and the most important thing is how you feel about yourself that matters.

      Most everyone was insecure coming into high school, I was a person who didn’t like talking to unfamiliar faces or doing anything out of the norm. But then somehow I changed for the better.        

      Anyone who knows me now would confirm how outgoing I am. I’m known as the girl who is “most likely to know people from every school.” I grew to decide to try track and even later cross country. And when I told myself I couldn’t do it, I became a member of the varsity team and even made it to States. I’m now furthering my running career into the collegiate level, which is something my middle school self, who despised running the Richardson Run, would doubt. In high school, I grew out of shyness with joining clubs, and I was even on Homecoming court. I found my group of friends and added to it. I found people who loved me for me, even if I’m crazy sometimes. 

       And most notably I loved me for me. I became someone who stopped caring what others thought and who was positive no matter the circumstances. I grew from the downs and enjoyed every second of the ups. Some- not my mom- may say I even became a little less self-centered. That’s hard to neither confirm nor deny, because I am still a teenager, but what can be confirmed is how much high school shaped me for the better, even if I didn’t get to finish it the way I wanted. Over these four years, I learned the importance of positivity, which I think not only the class of 2020 needs, but is something the world needs right now.