Entering high school can be challenging. Underclassman students are often misled or unaware of various things and sometimes are even tricked by the upperclassman in their school. Hallways are often flooded with gossip, rumors and interesting, generally false, stories that are told. 

A popular myth throughout high school is the thought that your experience is going to be just like the high school experience pictured in movies. While there are often many similarities, there are also a handful of differences. 

High school is not always going to be like the movie Mean Girls and not everything that happens in the movies will come true. There is no ruling person in charge of the entire school. There will certainly be people who are more open and have a larger circle of friends than others, but the truth is high schools can be so large in population that people are unconcerned with how popular you are. The popular clique is typically not going to host insane parties every weekend, with being invited to the party as being accepted.  

“Something I believed is that high school wouldn’t be so stressful, it’s embarrassing to not have a car while in high school, and that you can’t go to any events like prom if you don’t have a date,” junior Mallory Walters said. “I don’t think high school is fun like it is in the movies. In movies, they almost never even actually do schoolwork and they were always happy and friends with everybody.”

Another myth that is frequently talked about on campus is the thought that seniors always bully the freshman. While this might be the case in extreme circumstances, for the majority of people, seniors and freshmen are often friends. They may pick on each other from time to time, as typical friends do, but nothing meant to provoke harm on the other. 

“I think it’s normal for any senior to make fun of a freshman because they are kids starting high school and learning, and us seniors are just being reminded of when we once were freshman. I don’t think we bully them, I think it’s a way to have a laugh around the school talking about the freshmen once they are seniors. They are kids just learning, once they are upperclassmen they will realize what they did wrong and right,” senior Zoe Duran said. 

Another interesting rumor that circulates around the NHS is that there is a ghost in the auditorium. Several students have spread stories that someone died there. While this rumor is for the most part harmless and additionally not able to be proven, many students believe faithfully that something is not right in the auditorium. 

“I was working on the play ‘Into the Woods.’ I wasn’t in the drama club or anything at all and decided to help for fun. I was in the back getting paints and hammers when I heard a noise drop. As a person who believes in ghosts, it was definitely a ghost. A hammer fell from a shelf I believe and I never ran so fast in my life,” senior Yuretzi Licea said. 

For a long time, there has been a popular belief that high school will be the best years of your life. Many teenagers believe that high school is supposed to be the best years of their lives and that they should make the most of it before it’s all over. For each student, high school can be a new experience. For many it’s the greatest time to learn more about yourself and your possibilities for the future. 

“School is only the beginning. The start of your life is when you decide what you are going to do with it. What really matters is how you make life meaningful to you,” junior Karsen Stuhlsatz said.