At the beginning of this school year, I didn’t know how I wanted my senior year to be like.
Senior year is always portrayed as the year where students let themselves run wild, stop caring about their grades, and slowly start resembling some sort of social sloth.
Honestly, I didn’t really want to fall into the stereotype, but it’s kind of inevitable, at least to some extent. You do stop caring less about your grades, procrastinate more, and sleep and watch Netflix, TONS of Netflix. There are some days where I don’t even open my school bag. I know — shocking — even to me.
Although, if you think about it, it does make sense: After 3 years of high school, you just want to have fun and relax, especially after you’ve finished applying to college. You feel as if a huge weight has been lifted off your back, both literally and metaphorically, since you also start taking and carrying less stuff to school and your school bag starts weighing less.
So, what should your senior-year priorities be? Do you want to solely follow the lazy-senior stereotype, or do you want to push yourself to keep working as hard? These are questions that I personally asked, and even still ask myself constantly. I’ve actually had a lot of time to think. I’ve decided to share my senior-year priorities with you, just in case you decide to make them your own once you start your last year of high school:
- Finish those college applications: The first semester of your senior year will basically be dedicated to college applications. You might want to get this done to the best of your abilities: Study for any exams you need to take (*cough* *cough* THE SAT) write the best cheesy, emotional-draining essays you can write, fill out those forms, and look for those scholarship opportunities. This is what’s going to define your future. You might want to make it one of your top priorities during the first semester.
- Spend time with your friends and family: Once you’re off to college, you might not be seeing them on a day-to-day basis, so you might want to spend as much time as you can with them. Go party with your whole class, eat lunch with your grandparents, have spontaneous movie-marathons with your friends. Whatever you like to do. You’ll regret it if you don’t.
- Relax: To me, relaxing means not doing my homework once in a while (because why not?), watching Netflix, sleeping wherever and whenever I want, and spending lots of time doing nothing, absolutely nothing. Just do whatever helps you feel well-rested.
- Doing what I feel like doing: I started doing more of the things I truly wanted to. I try not to force myself to do anything I don’t want to do. So what if I feel tired and don’t feel like going to track practice? Or want to go out to the movies instead of studying for my AP Calculus test the next day? Or feel like learning a new language instead of taking tons of extracurricular at school? Go for it. Do it. Or, don’t. Who cares. You deserve it.
- Maintaining a balanced lifestyle: To me, this means enjoying more and stressing less, while at the same time not letting your life get all messed up. Keep an acceptable GPA, go exercise, meditate. Whatever makes you feel as if you’re trying to make your life a little bit better. Personally, senior-year is also the year where we should seek both internal and external peace and what better way than trying to set your life straight?
