By: Alicia Rivera Mendonca
My name is Alicia and I am a Senior at Carteret High School. I am writing this short essay to inform lowerclassmen about senior year and what it is like.
At the beginning of senior year, September 2023, we were all entering the school thinking that it would be an easy year and that all we had to worry about was college acceptances and making it to graduation without any issues. Boy were we wrong. There is so much that goes into being a student, especially a senior. Now I am not writing this to scare you, just to tell you the truth.
These last six and a half months have been filled with college acceptances, scholarship applications, current school work, friendships, and personal responsibilities. We don’t get enough credit for juggling all of that at the same time. Now college acceptances and scholarships are pretty self explanatory but my school work as an honors and AP student, doesn’t make it easier. Does it make you look good on applications? Yes it does, but it also stresses you out because you have to juggle that on top of your future education. Friendship is another topic that is hard to handle. Not because it can be stressful, but because you’ll lose more people than you’ll gain between those nine months. You will come to terms with the idea that not everyone will remain in your life and those that do, have never made you question it. Now add that to your home life and personal life. As a student we juggle three to four or even five different lives at the same time. We have our school life, our home life, our personal life, our work life, and our friendship life. It isn’t impossible to juggle, it is just hard.
However, there are great things about senior year. You get recognition for your accomplishments like scholarships and acceptances, along with an honor roll. You also get a study hall which helps with needed time to finish assignments and applications. And of course the big three; the trip, dinner dance, and graduation. I currently have about three months left of school and those events are the talk of the school because we get to relax and have fun with our friends before officially saying goodbye to one another.
In closing, high school is hard, I won’t lie to you, but the journey from freshman year to now has been a very eventful one and if I had to do it over again I wouldn’t change a thing.
