I have finally decided what school I want to attend, but I have not applied yet. Something about finally putting all my work together over the past four years is nerve racking and scary. The second you have to write about yourself and what you’ve done in high school you’ll never feel good enough. It always helps to have a support system, but the moment they begin to tell you that certain things don’t matter and not to stress about it stresses you out even more. Examples of that are when people tell me that my GPA and rank don’t define me, but it literally does define you with college.  It’s hard to say numbers don’t make up who you are, but colleges decide who you are over specific numbers. Sometimes I hate the system, but sometimes I love it. By that I mean I wish schools would just talk to me. I think my personality could sell me better than my test scores ever could. The other problem I have is finding scholarships! They have to be the most nerve racking thing about college. Now this system definitely makes me mad because there are so many hidden rules everywhere. I love free money, I mean who wouldn’t? The fact that people keep telling me to just apply and I will get them drives me crazy! Everyone tells you that you’ll get the money but you can apply to 50 and maybe out of those 50 you’ll receive money from 5 and that’s if you’re lucky. So I feel like, Pro: I’m graduating. Con: I have to figure my life out at 18 and get myself in debt.   

Self growth is always something nice to see. Growth within relationships is even better. Not a lot of people think about how much their relationship with your parents changes over the years, but it changes more than you can imagine. I like to think your relationship with your parents is a roller coaster. Although it sounds like a cliche it is very true because with parents you can have days where you’re going up and it feels great, and then other days you’re going straight down and you’re filled with fear. My relationship with my parents really changed when I started high school. I’ve been the baby in my house all my life and always will, so starting to grow up and have responsibilities and become a young adult changed how my parents started to see me. Parents will always see you as a child, and I get that, but nothing is more awkward than having to break up with your parents. By that I mean having to cancel plans with your parents to hangout with your friends and awkwardly letting them down to do other things other than family movie night. It’s hard to see this break up happen because it starts a shift in the relationship. This shift results into fights most the time, but there comes a time when your roller coaster goes up again. With any relationship in my life I learned the hard way that communication is necessary to keep everyone happy on the ride, and your parents will always be the ones that have your back.

Teen drivers are the worst and I can say that because I am one of the many terrible drivers I know. Imagine this, right after taking your SAT you get in a wreck and then everyone in your testing room drives by you awkwardly waving their hands to see if you’re okay and you pretending you cant see them because getting hit is already embarrassing enough. Can you feel the awkwardness of this scenario? Can you visualize someone staring at you waiting for a “I’m okay” back and this person in front of her wrecked car looking down at her shoes not looking back? Well that is a Saturday in my life. I really wonder how I got my license and I wonder how some teens got theirs because teen drivers are a mess.

Stuco is like a colorful debate class. We make posters and have discussions of what we want dress up days to be and plan out the pep rally days. I’m not going to lie, I have been one of those students in the past that has stayed in class rather than go to a pep rally, but with the amount of energy and fun we had during out first one I know students like myself will participate more. It is sad to think that I’m going into my senior year and I just started having school spirit. I really encourage students to get more involved and have fun! The worst feeling is looking back and realizing you could have had more fun in high school, but instead you decide to not get involved. 

Natalia Cardenas is the Senior Class President and is interested in studying Neurosciences in college. She will be a special contributing writer throughout the school year.