As summer is coming to a close, it is starting to feel as real as ever to be going into my senior year of high school. It is the year that we have been waiting for our entire lives. It is the year that we have waited the longest for but will go by the quickest. It is the year that will determine where we will be headed off for the next four, but it is also the year that we will really discover who we are.

In exactly one year from now, we will be all split up, across the country and maybe even split up across the world. We will be in institutions ranging from Harvard to Community College and we will be immersed in our own world. We will forget the glorious high school days, and be all caught up with the realms of college life: professors, dining halls and greek life, just to name a few. Our weekends will be spent on partying and studying instead of running to and from fifty-million extra-curricular activities. We will be in a school that, in some cases, is bigger than our town and frat parties and tailgates will become our new way of life.

Just let that soak in. How over the past 12 years, our lives have been so mundane, until all of a sudden, we are picked up out of our comfy lives and dropped off into a sterile dorm room. It only stays sterile for a short amount of time before it starts to boom with life and color and memories with college friends.

It also is a startling realization that this is the last year of our lives that we are completely structured. We wake up at a set time, go to a school for 7-8 hours a day then come home and work for the rest of the night. In college, every day is different, which makes college such a different experience rather than the “9-5” schedule.

So, as we pack our backpacks for the last time, and we take our last first day of school picture with our brown bag lunch, remember that this is not only a time of sadness and maturity, but also a sense of accomplishment. Because, before you know it, your parents will not be there to kiss you goodbye before you get on the bus.

Make every moment count. Try new things, go out for a new sport, try to score a spot in the school musical. Fall in love, fall out of love. Whatever makes you life your life wild and free, do. It will be the last time before we go our different ways. Take time to enjoy every moment and live it like its your last.

My favorite quote of all time comes from the genius Meredith Grey: “We're grownups, how did it happen and how do we make it stop?”

The class of 2017, this is our time, and lets make it amazing!