As is obvious to everyone who is a senior, we are nearing graduation. The time when we all get to walk across the stage on Fischer Field. The gates of freedom from this penitentiary that we call high school.

While these last few weeks will be filled with advice and well wishings, let us not forget about one quote that I bet all of you have heard at least once if not several other times. “High school will be the best four years of your life, enjoy them!” Let us be honest, a large percentage of us heard these words from family and the older generations in our life. In reality, that sentence is extremely overrated. The best four years of our life? Forgive me, but absolutely not. Maybe we all “glo up” or learn things about ourselves, but no. If these are the best four years of my life, then that sets a pretty low standard for everything else. Now, I am not going to say that the same quote holds true for college, because once again that is overrated. But, I will say that they are going to be the final four years introducing you into the “real world”.

High school is just a mess if we are all being honest. We are at that weird stage between teenagers and adults, but we have improved slightly from the middle school stage that we all choose to ignore. These next few years are our last chance to figure out what we want our life to look like, without being labeled as useless.

Now do not get me wrong, college is an outstanding choice. But, it is not like there are not other equally outstanding choices. There is nothing wrong with technical or trade schools. I mean think about it, where would we be without construction workers, or welders, or all of the other options that I am forgetting. A society filled only with doctors, and business professionals would be severely underdeveloped on the manual labor side of things. I am not saying that any of those careers are more valuable than the other.

High school is over. Our teachers have done all that they can to influence us to make the best choices. Believe it or not, teachers do care about you. Some of the people that I look up to the most and have influenced me the greatest have been teachers. Our various classes have given us a glimpse into the various career fields that we can look into. Our rules and regulations have taught us to cheat the system. Then, ending the year without a senior prank or camp out in the parking lot has taught us many things. That four long years of sitting in uncomfortable desks, eating minuscule lunches, and following Victorian era dress codes does not mean that we should be awarded a day or two of fun to relieve the end of year stress. These four years have not been the best of my life, but they most definitely have not been the worst. You get out what you put into things. High school might not be fabulous, but as A.J. Lawless said, “I know the rain is cold my dear, but dance in it a little while you wait for the sun.”