
Dear Underclassmen:
The reward you have all waited three years for–through late night collaterals, tons of homework, and those four hour study sessions–comes faster than you think. Yes, I’m talking about senior year. It’s the most anticipated year in high school, the point where you know that all the hard work you have done at Townsend Harris has paid off.
What makes senior year so enjoyable is not having to sit through eight bands a day, just waiting for that five minute bell to ring. It’s not that you don’t have work. It’s that you are free to make more of your own educational decisions, no longer stuck to the traditional school day. In senior year the maximum amount of classes you will have is five: Physical Education, U.S. Government/Economics, Humanities, a QC class, and one Townsend Harris elective. During free bands, you’re probably going to be in the library doing homework or in the senior lounge just hanging out with friends. You’re as close as you can get to being a real college student.
One of the best things that comes with senior year is the appreciation of friends. Those same awkward kids you met and never thought you would be friends with on the first day of school are now the same people that you laugh with and talk with in the senior lounge. For me, and probably a majority of the senior class, this year has made us realize how important it is to spend time with friends. Senior Omar Rafael said, “Senior year is the year that you appreciate your friends for being there for [you] all these years.”
A phenomenon known to seniors all too well, not only in Townsend Harris but to high school seniors all across the country, is senioritis. It’s the point in senior year where you get into that Ivy League college that you had your heart set on, so you do just enough work to walk across the stage in Colden with a diploma in your hand. But one way to lessen the effects of senioritis is to remember that nothing is guaranteed. If you are waitlisted for a college and the next marking period will determine whether or not you get into that college, you will most likely be motivated to continue doing the same hard work you did for the last 3 years.
At the end of senior year there are two events that most, if not all Seniors are looking forward to: prom and graduation. Prom, the last hoorah before graduation, is what most female seniors have been waiting for since freshman year, and what most senior males only thought about a month or so before the actual date. Then comes graduation, the most joyful but also the saddest of days. The day that makes all those late nights you spent doing homework, or studying for tests worth it. Unfortunately, it’s also the day you realize you won’t be in the same school with the unique people you spent the last four years of your life with.
So study hard, and keep doing those pointless collaterals. It will all pay off in the end and lead to an enjoyable Senior Year.