Senior year is going to rock, I can’t wait to be a senior, senior year is my year. Teenagers all around idolize senior year, their last year of high school, their “golden year” with fancy trips and easy classes. What they don’t know is it’s not all it’s knocked up to be. 

For some, it’s a normal year but for most, it’s a stressful and sad year. People don’t tell you about the looming feeling of graduating and becoming an adult forever, the hair-gripping stress from colleges without being in college, or the constant reminder that AP exams are coming up. They leave out the part about the huge mental toll it takes on you, how most days you want to stay curled up in your room or your safe space and never leave. You have to get up every morning with a little voice in your head telling you “This is your last year, make it count.” When it comes down to it the senior year teens idolize doesn’t exist, your senior year is what you make of it. This is reality, senior year is just a giant reality check in the form of your last year as a child. 

If you take AP classes the stress on you is probably higher than most, we have the AP exam to pass to get the college credit. Let’s not even mention the amount of homework you’re given in each AP class. If you fail the exam you have to retake the course in college, If you pass the exam the choice to take the course again is yours. AP classes are just a taste of college and even then it’s a little sugar-coated, the classes are just fillers for seniors just like electives are. These courses are here so you don’t have to take 4 classes you don’t think will benefit you, so you have that option to get a head start for college. They love talking about AP classes and their great perks, but they never really speak about how difficult it is to keep up, especially if you’ve never taken one before. They tell you the exam is the only real difficulty of the course but that’s a lie, what do you think the exams are about? The exams are about the course you took, if they are preparing you for said exam it only makes sense that the class be just as difficult. The only difference between the exams and the classes is that if you fail the exams it doesn’t bring down your GPA, however, that’s not the case for the classes. Yes, the classes bring up your GPA if you pass them but it also brings down your GPA if you fail them. You’re welcome. With that said it truly depends on the individual and their skill set, take my words with a grain of salt. Some struggle more than others in AP classes, some thrive in those classes, and most are just cruising through. 

It doesn’t hit you that you’re about to become an adult until about halfway through the year, around New Year’s for most seniors. That’s because we’re too busy with college applications and classes to focus on our life after this. Once those deadlines are closed though it’s like a dam breaking and a flood of emotions takes over. Happiness from finally finishing and meeting your deadlines, excitement to see if you get accepted, fear of rejection, the realization that you just applied to colleges, and then there’s the new stress of finances. That’s when it finally sinks in. You are truly becoming an adult, this is it, this is what’s next, after this the training wheels are off and you’re on your own to live your own life how you see fit. 

Today I’m here as a senior at Roosevelt High School, your classmate, your upperclassman, or your friend. I’m here to deliver the message people refuse to tell you until you step into the shoes that I and other seniors leave at the doorstep of adulthood for you. That message is don’t try to live up to other people’s expectations for what senior year should look like, and don’t beat yourself up for not having the best adventures in your last year. So what if you constantly work after school, or if you have home life responsibilities, it’s your senior year no one else’s. People shouldn’t be telling you how to run your show so don’t let them be the host of your own life learn to take as much control as you can at your age. That is how you will get through tough times that is how you will leave senior year feeling accomplished.