High-school is a special time. For the first time you’re given some sort of freedom. As a senior you anxiously await the day you pack up your car and move into college; for some it may be just down the road and for others it may be across the country. It’s a time in your life when you’re asked to make big decisions for the very first time. Decisions bigger than who you’re going to take to the prom with or what you should wear for your senior pictures. These are the decisions that will impact a large part of your life; and for the most part, you’re asked to do so with little guidance besides your own intuition and your parents' opinions. As a senior in high school I wish someone would have sat me down and given me a talk about high-school, college, and everything in between.

Have Your Voice Heard: Become an Odyssey Creator

1. Apply to your dream school.

Even if you think you’ll never get in, you’ll never be able to afford it, or that it’s way too far and your parents would never approve. The feeling of getting an acceptance letter from a university or college in the mail is an indescribable feeling. I still remember how it feels: your heart racing, you tear the envelope open, and then you see the word “Congratulations!” and it feels like you just won a Grammy. OK maybe dramatic, but it really is one of the best feelings ever. You know that your hard work in high-school is finally being noticed.

2. Don’t let anyone else’s college decisions affect your own.

Don’t let your BFF or your boyfriend of 3 months tell you not to go to a college halfway across the country because they’ll “miss you.” If your BFF is really your BFF, she will still love and support you from a few states away. FaceTime was invented for a reason; use it and use it well. You don’t need to be down the hallway from someone to hold a strong friendship with them. Sometimes a little distance can do a relationship some good

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3. Enjoy the little things.

Go to all of the sporting events, school dances, parties, and everything possible. Even if you are so comfy in bed and don’t feel like getting up and going to another basketball game, go and hangout in the student section and talk with your friends and cheer on your fellow seniors. This is the last year you’re going to have with these people. Trust me, I know, you might dislike 90% of them, but in a year you’re gonna miss them. You’ll find yourself laying in your dorm on a twin size mattresses at three in the morning wondering if Jessica from English class is doing good at college in halfway across the country.4.

4. Don’t worry if you don’t know exactly what you want to do with your life.

Even if you have no idea, don’t stress. There are so many people that go into college without a major, like myself. Then there are others who go in so sure that they want to be the next top brain surgeon; then they go through a couple semesters of classes and realize they would rather study art history, and that’s okay. Changing your major isn’t the end of the world. I mean for me personally I changed mine four times within my first semester at college. College is about finding yourself, so if you aren’t completely sure what you want to do with your life, don’t worry. You’ll take a few general education courses, and who knows, you may even fall in love with something you never thought you would.

5. Don’t stress over the stupid relationship you just started that won’t stop annoying you.

If anyone listens to anything I say ever, if should be this: If you are a senior in high-school dating someone who is not a senior, DO NOT stress over them. Especially if the relationship just started. My motto is: ‘If it’s meant to be, it will be’, so follow that motto through relationships. If you are meant to be married to someone, eventually it will happen. Just trust the system.

6. Spend time with your parents.

I know that right now you can’t wait to get away from your parents and be independent, but soon you will miss sitting on the couch with them and eating popcorn that you didn’t have to dig change out of the bottom of your purse to buy. Before you know it you’ll be buried up to your neck in school work and wishing your parents were right downstairs to help you destress and get yourself together after bombing an important exam.

7. Take advantage of all of the home cooked meals.

Dining hall food is tolerable for a little while. But eventually one day you will wake up in mid October and realize that you’re so extremely tired of eating burnt pizza for every meal of the day. The food you eat everyday at school will be mediocre at best on most days, so while you’re still at home, enjoy those hamburgers cooked on the grill, the homemade pasta, and the taco bar your parents set up for you. Soon you’ll wish you had those meals that at the time you felt like you were getting so bored of.

8. Get a random roommate.

I know what you’re thinking. I know nobody ever wants a random roommate, but trust me, do it. Getting a random roommate is not what movies make it out to be. She won’t steal hair from your hair brush or your used tissues, the only thing she might steal is a pack of mac-and-cheese when she comes home drunk and hungry at two in the morning. Living with someone you don’t know opens so many new doors for making new friends. You’ll both be new and excited to be in a new place together. You’ll always have someone down to explore the campus, talk to the cute boys who live two floors down, and get Sheetz hotdogs in the middle of the night with you. Right now it feels like you’re just signing up to live with a random girl from Delaware, but in a few months that girl could be one of your best friends.

9. Don’t take 8 a.m. classes.

You may think you can handle them, but theres a 99.9% chance you won’t be able to. If you’re anything like me, on the first day of classes your alarm will go off at 7 a.m. and you’ll immediately regret your decision. Taking early classes in college always sounds like a good idea before you’re in college. You’ll think that you would be fine because in high school you had class earlier than that, but you’ll learn about two weeks into college that 8 a.m. classes are the biggest enemy you can ever have.