Everybody tells you that your time in high school is either going to be the best or worst years of your life. As seniors who are graduating in one week, we’re here to tell you that your experience is whatever you make of it. Here are some tips that we´ve learned throughout our 4 years at Oakmont that hopefully you can use.
Getting Involved
Our first piece of advice for underclassmen is to get involved. We would encourage
anyone reading to try out as many different activities and clubs as possible. This includes joining sports teams, theatre, band, student council, or maybe your school newspaper! Any opportunity where you get to make connections and meet new people is an opportunity worth taking. Teams and clubs look great on college applications, but they can also majorly boost your social life. Partaking in activities can lead you to meet people with similar interests, who can turn into lifelong friends.
Balancing School and Social Life
Although school should be one of your main priorities, We also have to stress the importance of prioritizing your family, friends, and self. Packing your schedule with different activities and events is great, but remember to make time to have dinner with your family or go out with your friends every once in a while. Some of our core memories over the years include Friday night football games, getting ready for homecoming dances, taking part in spirit weeks, and playing in the annual powder puff game. Most importantly, make time to take care of yourself and do activities that make you feel good. This can include reading, drawing, exercising, or whatever you might find to be relaxing.
Maintaining Friendships
In high school especially, friendships are not easy, to say the least. People change, move to different schools, and sometimes just lose touch. What we want to stress the most is that the friends we have made over these past years are what have gotten us through all the ups and downs that come during this stage of our lives. Make sure that no matter what, you always make time for your friends who have been there for you through it all, although it may sound cliche it is one of the most important things to value.
A lot of times in high school people find significant others which is an exciting time as well as also being stressful. Having balance is a recurring challenge that is always going to be a struggle and trust us, it won’t go away, but this is especially needed when you are getting into these kinds of relationships. We have personally seen friendships come and go from this type of stuff and truthfully, it’s sad. It’s hard to watch people who you once hung out with all the time and went to everything with slowly fade away. All of us have been in relationships at one point or another and we have learned that it is possible to have that healthy balance if you want it. Now that we are all moving on to college, all of our memories that we can look back on are with each other. Remember the people who truly care about you, they are the ones you will miss the most when you are about to leave.
Classes and How to Pick a Balanced Schedule
The classes you take and balancing the amount of AP or honor courses and electives is super important. When you have a packed schedule during sports seasons or when you have work daily, it can get super difficult to balance your time and the amount of homework you need to complete. The most important year for organizing work, school, and extracurriculars is Junior year, at least for most people. This is the year everyone warns you about but there are ways to make it more manageable.
Here are some tips:
- Picking a balanced schedule (some academic classes, some electives)
- Don’t be afraid to ask your guidance counselors for help and advice
- Write assignments down in a planner/notebook
- Set goals for yourself
- Find study habits that work for you
- Prioritize yourself, don’t let school stress you out
- Don´t burn yourself out with too-challenging classes
College (think about it early)
Although college seems so far away, it comes a lot quicker than you think. Your four years of high school fly by and the college talks that everyone dreads are here before you know it. College is something that people don’t want to figure out until later, but when the time comes and you have to make the decision, your last four years’ worth of grades, extra circulars, and attendance are the judges of where you have the opportunity to attend. Colleges look at all of these as a guide to determine who will be accepted. And if you’re not thinking about this soon enough, it can affect your future.
One big tip that helped some of us was touring colleges in person. It is such a different experience when you are walking on the campus of a school compared to just seeing it online. Although you may not want to spend your weekends on these tours, it does help to feel the vibe of the school. Another way to make this entire process smoother for you when you reach your junior and senior years is to apply to a lot of colleges. We have experienced ourselves wishing that we had done way more. Once deadlines hit you can’t do anything about it and when you need to make your decision, having a wide range of different kinds of schools helps. Another piece of advice that we learned during our time at Oakmont with the college transition is that you can’t make a wrong choice. Whether you end up at an Ivy League or a Community College, everything will be fine. If college is what you want to do after high school, try and enjoy the whole process as much as you can, don’t let it stress you out. People tell us all the time that if you hate where you end up you can always transfer, and this is so true. The final decision of picking your school seems like the world is ending, but nothing is truly final if you don’t want it to be.
Conclusion
Don’t let the stress of the anticipated changes that are about to come in your life ruin your senior year. Make the most of each day and every moment. Enjoy it all because it is something that you are only going to experience once in your life and we sure are going to miss it!
