Prep time: 13 years Cook time: four years
Ingredients
Clubs
Late nights
Some tears here and there
Nike slides
Procrastination
Instructions
Freshman year:
1. Join clubs that you didn’t really want to join but they were “good for college.”
2. Constantly worry about getting As because you thought you wouldn’t get into a good college if you didn’t have perfect grades.
3. Repeat steps 1-2 daily.
Sophomore year:
1. Get a zero period because you thought you could handle waking up at 6 a.m. every day.
2. Become a starter in your first year on the varsity tennis team. Win CIF championships.
3. Take your first AP class and realize how hard APs actually are. Shed a tear when you get your first DBQ back.
4. Take a daily fat nap after school because you’re always tired.
Junior year:
1. Learn how to get through life while running on four hours of sleep, sometimes even two.
2. Join Rampage and love it, even though it takes up a lot of time.
3. Quit some extracurriculars you don’t enjoy so you can put more time into the ones you actually do.
4. Invest in some Nike slides and wear them daily.
Senior year:
1. Think it’s normal to take five AP classes. Regret all of your life decisions so far.
2. Get a job at Kumon. Realize that working with kids is harder than you thought.
3. Procrastinate on your college applications and begin seriously writing them in November.
4. Become News Editor and realize how much work, time and effort is needed for a successful issue. Feel proud of all your achievements in Rampage like Best Opinion article of the year and seventh place in Newspaper Layout at a competition.
5. Get into UCLA and start crying while doing your makeup for Sadie’s.
6. Graduate.
I hope you all can see how my high school years were not perfect, but I’ve learned from them. If I could go back in time to freshman year, I would’ve dropped the notion that certain classes and extracurriculars were “good for college.” I would’ve saved so much time without them.
Also, I put so much emphasis on my academics, so I didn’t have the time to just have fun or do things for myself. I took my GPA way too seriously, without realizing that it restarts when you go to college.
If you do the things you want and like, instead of just following what you see other people doing, you will be okay. Make the most out of high school. It’s cliché but true.