After attending the ACE program at the Frisco ISD Student Opportunity Center, I have now officially graduated from high school. This wasn’t my plan, but I am thankful for it and I feel accomplished because high school was such a mentally exhausting experience for me.

I went into freshmen year with people telling me that these four years in high school were going to be the best four years of my life. How could a fourteen-year-old not get high expectations after hearing that?

I spent every second of this year trying to make the absolute most of my high school experience from the start. I joined a lot of clubs but I ended up leaving over half because I joined way too many. I was constantly thinking about what would look good on my college resumé.

I tried desperately to make as many friends as possible, and I cared way too much about what everybody thought of me. I showed up to school everyday with a full face of makeup, a nice outfit, and my hair done. I woke up so early every morning and set multiple alarms as to when I should be done with my makeup, hair, etc. As if it mattered!

I just really wanted to be liked. However, freshman year I was pretty happy. I liked going to school and I made really good grades.

Sophomore year is when my attitude about school began to decline….rapidly. I was very excited to come back to school in 10th grade because of how much fun I had freshman year. But the difference between freshman year and sophomore year was this: freshman year I took all on-level courses but one, and then I went into sophomore year taking an AP class and 3 pre-AP classes.

I’ve never been someone who was really behind and failing everything in school, but I’ve also definitely never been an academically gifted person. Just a pretty average student. Again, I wanted what would appeal to colleges. Which was my mistake, because the fact is that colleges don’t care how many AP’s you have if you’re not doing well in them.

The kids in my more advanced level classes would constantly tease me and laugh at the questions I asked in class, so I became very insecure about my academic ability; I felt really dumb. Everyone around me was making perfect grades and I couldn’t understand why I didn’t. I studied just as many hours as they did, took so many notes, but still performed poorly.

Little did I know that I’m not stupid, it’s just that college-level courses aren’t for every sophomore in high school. And that is okay. Due to this, though, I felt that I was incompetent no matter what I tried, and I tried just about everything. My parents even got me a professional tutor that I saw three times a week. I began to stop trying because even when I did try, I couldn’t seem to get it right. My grades went down which just made it worse. This is when I started to hate school.

Junior year, it was even worse. School made me so anxious and uncomfortable to the point that I couldn’t physically bring myself there. And even if I did, I would usually have a bad panic attack and leave school. Because of this, I did online school for my second semester.

I had this idea in my head of what senior year was supposed to look like. I thought it would be the best one yet, since the last two were so bad. I wanted to come back to school so I wouldn’t miss the experience of my last year of high school. But senior year ended up behind junior year on steroids.

I am thankful that the Liberty staff recommended SOC to me. Although it wasn’t like what I imagined, it is what I needed. I have changed drastically every year of high school, each year more so. Despite the fact that high school took a toll on me, I wouldn’t have it any other way due to everything I learned from my experience.