Reflections upon Graduating Grade School

I’m in kindergarten again and I remember waving bye to my mother as I walked into a colorful classroom with tons of posters and about 25 other kids just as nervous as I am. I have 13 more years until I am wearing a cap and gown.

I am now back to reality and quickly approaching the end of my 13 years. I am still not too sure how those years whizzed by me and I am now suddenly just months away from graduating. Kindergarten through senior year I had always been told to perform well and study hard and do all my homework. Next year, though, who will be there to tell me what to do? Probably no one. College is supposed to be “the time of your life.” But maybe it is actually the time of our lives to start being independent and learn all the things we never learned in grade school. For some of us, that is terrifying and to others, sort of exciting. According to stageoflife.com, 66 percent of us teenagers are afraid of the future.

We will be entering a place where teachers are not called teachers. They are called professors. I am sure we have all heard of horror stories of professors not holding our hands and reminding us of a big test. Or even worse, telling us to actually read the giant textbook. Many of us take advantage of the advice our teachers give us now. But in actuality, most of them really do know what they are talking about. Of all of the things teachers have told me about how to deal with the present and the future, I will never get over the phrase, “eat your frog.” I heard it within the first few weeks of senior year from Mr. Atkins, my AP Government and Economics teacher. It pretty much means to do the things you don’t want to do first (eat the frog), and leave the good stuff (pizza or chocolate) for after. It will be so much sweeter. I don’t think there are any three words better than those to help a senior get through the rest of high school.

We will all be separated from the ones we stuck with in our “cliques” and joined with new ones that will actually have the same major as us. When we were younger, we all changed best friends a ton of times just because we move away or we get in petty fights or we just lose touch. Friends have come and go and then high school comes and there are always those few that are just always there. They are your crew, your mains, your squad. When we all graduate though, it is inevitable that some of us will go to different colleges purely for the reason that we have different goals in life. Soon, we will be sitting in classrooms where everyone is going for that same goal and suddenly competition just got harder.

I know that I am guilty of wanting to be in the top 20 ever since freshmen year. I am sure many of us have wanted to be at the top and be on honor roll and get the best grades possible. What I am not sure of though is if any of this will matter in the time span of a few months. Certainly it will not. There will be twice as many people in our classes and probably no one will even know the person who is at the top. We are currently worrying about things that will not even affect us in the future. Most of us don’t worry about paying bills and taking care of kids but soon enough that will be part of our job as an adult.

We will still have family to support us, but for the most part, we will be adults that are learning the ways of the world. Our whole life we are sheltered in our homes. Starting from young, our parents have helped us with multiplication problems and spelling simple words. Then a couple years later, they can no longer help us with classes like AP Statistics or AP Environmental Science. This is why we all need to learn for ourselves how to be our own shelter.

After college is when you will really be completely on your own. Unless a high paying job is handed to you, society is waiting for you. Many of us will be searching, even around the country, for a job that will support us and possibly even a soon to come family. We may have our own apartments by that time and our low paid teenager jobs just aren’t cutting it anymore. We are pushed out of college and into the real world and this time will come before you know it. It is the time to grow up and look in the right direction because those 13 years of being dependent are quickly coming to a close.