Many people talk about high school; they usually focus on the big moments, such as football games, prom, and graduation. What people don’t talk about are the smaller moments that end up meaning the most later on. While I look back at my high school experience, I realized that the memories I value the most are not the perfect moments or huge accomplishments. Instead, they were everyday experiences that slowly changed me into the person I am now. If I could describe my high school experience in one sentence, I would say it goes by fast, so have fun, do your work, and have fun.
The workload was harder than middle school, teachers expected us to be more responsible, and everything moved faster than I expected. At first, I struggled with balancing homework, studying, and trying to stay motivated. There were days when I felt mentally exhausted from assignments just by themselves. I remember sitting at home and staring at my homework for hours and hours because I didn’t even know where to start. It seemed like everyone else adjusted to the work faster than I did, which made me question myself a lot.
There were moments where I doubted whether I was doing enough or whether I was capable of handling everything that high school required. Adjusting from middle school to high school was not as easy as I expected it to be. Teachers gave us more alone time and gave us independent work, which made it harder for me since I wasn’t adjusting to it as quickly as others were. At the time, the pressure was getting to me harder, and it made homework difficult for me to do. However, looking back now, I realize those difficult moments helped me to become more responsible and helped me mature over time, making me more independent and able to do my work alone.
What I learned throughout high school was that success doesn’t come randomly; it comes through time. Most of the time, success comes from continuing to try your best. Even when things become stressful or frustrating. There were many nights when I stayed up till 3am finishing my homework while crying at the same time, when I would rather have done something I wanted to do. Even though studying was difficult for me most of the time, I kept trying because I understood that I needed to put my full effort into the work I was doing.
As the years passed, I slowly became more disciplined with school and more aware of my grades, striving to make them my top priority. I started taking my assignments more seriously, tried to learn the work, and became more focused on improving myself academically and personally.
One thing I am genuinely proud of myself for is that I always tried my best and gave it my all, trying to improve my grades and finish my assignments on time, even when I felt unmotivated and tired of working in class. I have one big regret that I wish I could go back and fix, the regret was not involving myself in extracurriculars and outside activities. During my time in high school, I would always say to myself, “I have too much homework” or “I’m too busy,” giving myself excuses to not participate in those events. The real truth is that high school moves on much faster than most people anticipate, and all the opportunities will leave before you know it. I have now understood that activities outside of school are not important for college applications, but are also important to make friends and have fun with your fellow classmates that will last your lifetime.
Some of the memories I most value are the food runs at lunch or after school with my friends at Dave’s Hot Chicken, where we would sit down and talk about random things that are about school, such as tests, assignments, or projects. Sometimes we would joke around and complain about homework or talk about our future plans after graduation. The top things we would talk about mainly were the upcoming UFC fights or the NBA playoffs. Now that I am talking about those memories, they are the memories that I’ll miss.
One thing I have realized is that students aren’t realizing they are experiencing the biggest memories while they’re happening. Another thing that high school has changed is my mindset. When I first started high school in 9th grade, transferring from online and coming back from Pakistan, I was less mature and less focused on my future. Over time, I became more aware of myself and my school work and started to take my life more seriously about the type of person I wanted to become. I learned how important patience and discipline play a role in how a person truly becomes themselves.
I also learned that everyone struggles, even if they don’t show it to everyone. It always looks like everyone else had everything else figured out while I was still trying to figure out how to manage doing my assignments and my overall future plans. As I got older, I understood that everyone was dealing with their own type of struggles. That really helped me because I stopped comparing myself to others and started to just focus on myself. Another thing high school has taught me is that everyone has something they are struggling with and tries to figure it out while they grow through high school.
Graduation is around the corner, and I am very happy and excited for my future. I don’t look at high school as a luxury experience. There are many things I wish I had done differently. But I also see my time in high school was to prepare me and reshape me for my future. I have become more responsible, more disciplined, and way more focused on my future than I was when I started Freshman year. At the end of the day, high school was not only about good grades or doing assignments on time. It was about growing to become a better person and learning how to become a better version of myself.
