Dear new freshman,
Congratulations! You’ve traversed the halls of the middle school for three years and now you’re finally done. Now, the big question is what comes next? If you are like me when I was in your shoes, you’re probably excited but also a little nervous to take the next thrilling step into this strange, daunting new world called high school. To you here at the beginning, the next four years might as well be taking up the span of four hundred years. Graduation is only an infinitesimal blip on the radar screen of life, barely large enough to be considered an idea.
I, too, once felt as if high school would last forever. But as I stand here at the end of my high school journey, I look back on it all and realize how very wrong I was. I feel as if I blinked and it was all over before I open my eyes. However, in this brief time I managed to learn a thing or two about myself and about life in general. While you will discover some of these things for yourself in your own fleeting experience, I would like to impart some of these lessons now so that you might start off this new adventure in the right direction.
For your education: Alway get the best grades you can. Trust me, it pays off. Speaking of paying off, never be afraid to challenge yourself; take the hardest classes you think you can handle and try your very best at them. I decided to take advanced chemistry my senior year without much prior knowledge of chemistry, and while it was challenging, it ended up being one of my favorite classes. So don’t be scared of hard work. You never know what you’re going to be good at or what you’re going to love doing until you try it.
For your peers: People are going to come and go these next four years, but don’t let it get to you. I have spent time with many different groups of people throughout my high school career, and while I’ve stayed close to some of these people, I’ve drifted away from others. And that’s okay. You’ll find some people whom you like a lot and some people that you can’t stand. And that’s okay too. As long as you give respect no matter the circumstance, the world will be a much happier place.
For the fun times: While you will need to buckle down and hit the books often, don’t forget to let your hair down sometimes and have a little fun. High school is not intended to be a place where you are chained to a desk and tortured for seven hours. High school is intended to be a place where you can grow and learn and discover who you are and who you want to be in life. It is intended to be a place where you can be yourself and have a little fun without being required to grow up just yet. Take this opportunity to explore and try something new. Find an activity you love, be it a sport, a music group, or an academic club, and pour your heart and soul into it. Go to your freshman homecoming, wear a crazy outfit to each of the home football games, or audition for a role in the play. Just find what makes you happy and what makes you tick and go do it. In the future you aren’t going to remember the average occurrences of everyday life; you are going to remember the fun times and the experiences you created for yourself. If you find the right balance between the work and the fun, I can guarantee that you won’t regret a moment.
For your future: Believe in yourself. Always. There will be good times and there will be bad times. Don’t let yourself get caught up in the bad times; believing in yourself and your ability to succeed will alway bring you back into the good times. On that note, never, ever be afraid to ask for help. There will always be someone around who wants to see you succeed, you just have to keep your eyes and ears open. Don’t worry if you don’t know what you want to do with your life just yet. You have plenty of time to figure that out. Just always believe that whatever you set your heart and mind to doing, whenever that happens to be, can happen and will happen. You can and will succeed. The future is yours.
You are in for some very exciting changes in your life. As you calibrate your machinery and check your radar for this unknown journey, know that what is to come will be better than you could ever expect. Remember to cherish every single moment given to you the next four years, because they really will be over before you know it. I wish you the very best of luck.
Sincerly,
Sarah Johnson
Class of 2015
