Everyone always told me that high school goes by faster and faster year by year. Everyone told me to make the best of the experience by joining clubs, making friends, and getting involved in the school; so that’s what I tried to do. Freshman year was kind of a mess because I took this advice too literally and joined too many clubs and ended up leaving half of them. However, once I got the hang of it and found out which clubs were for me, I ended up having a great time as well as meeting fun people.

As time went by, obviously high school got more difficult and more stressful. While freshman year (at least for me) was easy A’s, the closer junior year approached the more those A’s dropped. Junior year was by far the hardest year on me and many other students. Not just the schoolwork, but it was just emotionally a tough year. So much in fact, that I transferred to online school second semester to cope with what was going on on my own. I decided to return to Liberty for my final year in high school for the experience.

The first couple days back so far have been very up and down. I thought the transition was going to be just like coming back from summer, but it is a much bigger change than what I anticipated. I am used to having 24/7 access to all of my assignments and doing them all on my own time. While this comes across as a major luxury, there are definitely cons. The whole “no due date until the last day of school” thing really got to my head and I allowed myself to fall behind. If you’re anything like me and need a real teacher to learn, I would not suggest online school. Otherwise, it’s a good option, it just gets pretty lonely at times.

Regardless of the past, my focus is now. Senior year is all about the last “firsts.” It’s your last first day, your last first class, first football game, first dance, etc. To me, it’s the year that really matters because this time next year everyone is going to be scattered all over the country starting their own lives. This is a time of growth and discovering who you are and your true passions and what you want to do with your life.

To any new freshmen, my advice would be the same as I was given. You’re not too cool to participate in things the school offers. In fact, if you choose to miss out on them you’re only hurting yourself because you only get one high school experience, so if you have the choice to make it a good one, you definitely should.