As I entered the bright, shiny halls that would encompass the final years of my primary education, hope and anticipation filled my heart. High school, whether I wanted it to be or not, would be home to many lessons. Stretching beyond geometry proofs and grammar rules, knowledge contained in these classrooms would be applicable beyond the bubble of freshman and senior year alike.

I learned quickly that with great change comes a great shift in social equilibrium. Suddenly, it felt like I was swimming in a bottomless ocean compared to the relative safety of the middle school pool of peers. So many different cliques interacted with each other with various degrees of respect just with one glance at the commons area. Everyone I was acquainted with seemed to have a uniquely different agenda that I wasn’t able to decipher.

Despite my relative fear of the unknown, I knew that if I didn’t act with positive motives, I’d completely miss out on my own personal development. I did what any hesitant student would do. I threw myself into studying, laughing and learning in the final environment where I would be considered a child. From the lows to the highs, I feel incredibly blessed by outstanding instructors as well as by challenging curriculum. High school wasn’t one hundred percent a joyous experience, but what I took away from it will inevitably serve me well as I enter college.

For every year of high school, I learned a unique, important life lesson.

• Freshman enthusiasm is useful.
• Sophomore angst is real and you probably need to talk about it.
• Junior year is a lie.
• Senior year is a giant epiphany.

An opinion that plagues freshmen is that wide-eyed enthusiasm is bad. It’s a disheartening generalization. Child-like curiosity is innocent and pure. When it is applied in new fields of study, oftentimes the greatest innovation is born. There are plenty of times I wanted to give in to the apathy my classmates would develop when we encountered an especially challenging concept. It is an alarming sensation. As a young 14-year-old, why should I of all people feel burdened by acquiring new knowledge? High school is a safe environment in which to grow intellectual prowess. Tough material is only tough when you perceive it as such. Learning to love new things, learning to love change, is a skill integral to discovering what you enjoy in life.

High school is hormone central. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realize that high schoolers want to be accepted by their peers… just like everyone else. Sophomore year will shroud that observation with serious self-doubt. So when the puberty-induced angst decided it was my turn for a spin, I was spun, HARD. Angst is a funny thing. You’ll be able to pinpoint plenty of what’s bothering you, but logic will flee from your brain. It was hard for me to learn that some of the more asinine struggles I carried were just as tough for my peers to deal with. What I learned was that I needed to acknowledge what I was dealing with in order for me to regain the lost sense to treat it. As soon as I came clean with my feelings, I could talk about issues that bothered me honestly. The more people that related, the less that I felt that the world was out to get me.

Everyone tells incoming juniors that this year is the toughest. AP prep, IB assignments, “make-it-or-break-it” qualifications in extracurricular activities and proving yourself tend to place unnecessary stress on juniors. I entered junior year with a healthy sense of trepidation. How would I balance it all? As it turns out, juniors are better equipped to deal with one of the toughest years of school than they think. I had become somewhat of an old face around school now: I had two years under my belt; I knew the layout of school; I knew what sort of people were good for me and who weren’t; I knew or heard stories of great teachers and how I could win some of their precious time. By this point, I was a burgeoning communicator. My skills from previous years and newfound confidence in my status as an upperclassman influenced my education. I could speak freer than ever before. I had experience to draw confidence from. Consequently, said confidence allowed me to control the quality of my education and manage stress effectively. Hardest year of all? Maybe course wise. But it didn’t mean I had to be scared of it.

By this point, I’d acclimated to the idea of freedom. Seniors got off periods to work or go home early. We could choose to continue math or science or pursue artistic courses. Basically, I was told I could begin thinking for myself. Thinking for yourself is something still foreign to me. For my whole life, my parents controlled major aspects such as finances, healthcare and transportation. Suddenly, I could decide what to study and whether or not I should work. I could have my first taste of independence. I had a choice. Did I want to experience independence or did I need more time to accept it?

Honestly, the answer was more time. Accepting that I simply wasn’t ready for many aspects of adult life was the hardest lesson. I had to learn that self-awareness didn’t yield satisfactory assessments all the time. A better mental consciousness is indicative of maturity that sets apart a prospective college student and a senior in high school. Maturity, in and of itself, is the hardest lesson to learn because of how long it takes to teach, experience and internalize.

Overall, I'm just like everyone else in the class of 2020. I'm back to square one. A wide-eyed freshman with boundless enthusiasm, I can't wait to experience life as a college student. However, I'd like to believe that this time around I'm wiser, more prepared. High school was a tough journey of personal growth, but college will be where I find myself and tease possibilities of who my future self will be.