Everyone warned me that college applications would make my life a nightmare, but I’ve found that the real nightmare is in all the STUFF seniors have to buy. From my $70 cap and gown package to my friends’ $300 class rings, I feel like graduation has become more of a moneymaking scheme than an actual celebration of achievement.
In some ways, the items we’re told we need to purchase make sense. We obviously need our caps and gowns, and senior portraits provide a snapshot of our senior selves for the future.
However, many senior costs are arbitrary and funded by the reasoning, “Just do it! You’re a senior!” Why do we have to pay $20 to get our photo in the yearbook? What is the point of Jostens’ senior socks? Does every item on earth need to be branded with our graduation year and shoved in our face as a necessary cost?
Sweatshirts that proclaim our status as seniors may serve as a nice memento, but anything that can be marketed equally to any senior in the United States probably won’t represent our personal high school experiences. The best way to do that is to decorate our caps and wear items that represent our achievements during graduation.
Since most of us have purchased our caps and gowns, we should be allowed to decorate them to show off the best parts of our time at TCHS. Unfortunately, our school only lets us wear the basic attire and four school-approved accessories: the CSF and NHS cords, the ASBL stole, and the Peer Listeners flower.
Temple City students are diverse and our interests deserve to be celebrated, from robotics to band to baseball. In my opinion, having the freedom to show who we are at graduation would make all the nightmarish senior costs worth the investment.
TCHS School Newspaper