The transition from a sophomore to a junior is a big one. Some of it feels the same, such as going to class, studying for quizzes and tests, doing homework, etc. But there’s also this cloud that’s looming over you, and it gets larger, greyer, and scarier as you approach the end of your junior year.

That cloud consists of the many details and deadlines that come with college applications, the fact that your high school life is nearing its end, and the feelings of being unsure about where you’re headed in the future, unease about whether you’ll be happy in the future, and uncertainty about pretty much every decision you make as you step towards college.

It’s impossible not to associate college with your senior year and life beyond it, especially when our school encourages us to plan early for it. It’s hard to thoroughly enjoy your junior year when you have such an overwhelming experience that you’ll have to encounter one day.

But junior year should be treated like the years before. Get to know your teachers and spend time with your friends. Have fun but also keep up with your work. You’re still in a sort of fledgling stage, and you should worry more about the present rather than the future. Plus, you don’t even have to go to college the minute you graduate from senior year—you can take a gap year, or you can wait more than that, or you can just not go at all.

It’s all your choice.

Regardless, you shouldn’t let all the anxiety about what college you’re gonna get into and what you’re gonna major in eat you up the entire school year when you’re guaranteed to have other pressing responsibilities that you’ll have to tend to before then.

Enjoy your junior year and try to experience it to the fullest.

Join clubs, reach out and meet new people, go to homecoming or really any party—just live your junior year as you would have before. If you end up succumbing to the panic of being prepared for a part of life that you haven’t reached it, that’s all that you’re going to remember of your junior year when you look back to it.

You should remember the good aspects of it, not you rushing to get through the year with a solid plan in hand.