In 10 short months, the Brookfield High School class of 2014 will be turning the tassel to the other side of the graduation cap. High school students as a whole know that mixed emotions about their education are unavoidable, but a specific group of the student body is forced to identify and deal with these feelings come June. Students at Brookfield High School live a relatively sheltered life, but every year some of our baby birds are thrusted out of the nest. The question is: who will soar and who won’t.
Over time, graduating from high school has become almost inevitable, but being excited and ready is not. People usually hear about intense anticipation and elation of receiving the diploma and moving onto the “real world”, but in reality things are not that simple.
Nerves and anxiety often take over, about things such as college and making friends. The majority of the Brookfield High School class of 2014 has been attending school together since kindergarten. This seems normal to students here, but it’s not so common and it may make it harder to move onto a college where people haven’t known each other since they were seven. Students complain about seeing the same people day after day year after year, but by the time twelfth grade comes around many start to realize that they’ll miss the comfort of familiarity. Seniors begin to realize that good friends may be lost or drift away due to going to different colleges and living in different cities.
Many graduating seniors are scared for a large portion of the year because they don’t yet know what the future holds. A large portion of the anxiety that is felt stems from college plans. Nicole Biondi, a senior at Brookfield high school, demonstrated this anxiety when she said “I am excited even though I don’t know what I want to do with my life”. There are students that feel that they’re completely alone in their inability to decide what they want to pursue in life, but just by walking through the halls of BHS it is easy to see that these students are anything but alone. There is a constant buzz of college talk, from “where do you want to go?” to “do you think I’ll get in?”. The guidance office of Brookfield High School starts off college talk the very first week of school, and sets up meetings within the first month. BHS counselors make sure that college guidance is just an email away.
Then, there are those students who truly cannot wait to escape the grips that high school has had on them for the past four years of their lives. An abundant amount of seniors are highly anticipating college due to the glorified “college lifestyle”. Many television or film representations of college unrealistically portray college as one, big party. Real life cases of that being the reality for someone’s college experience often come along with failing grades and academic probation. It’s great to be excited to graduate and move on to the next chapter in life, but it should be for the right reason. Rachel Kovacs, a graduating senior at Brookfield High School, declares that she “cannot wait to leave and go somewhere else”. She has everything figured out, she wants to major in psychology and get a degree in school counseling. She is excited for college not because she can’t wait to party or be out all night, but because she gets to pursue her passion. Be excited, but be realistic.
When asked how he felt about graduating, class of 2014 senior Steve Delvalle responded with “I don’t want to grow up”. By graduation day, a typical student will have spent a large majority of their life attending school. In less than a year, high school seniors will lose a big part of their lives and it’s normal to be scared about that. Graduating signifies moving on. With a diploma comes real responsibilities and important decisions that influence one’s entire future. It’s not easy and recognizing that can be very beneficial.
Here at Brookfield High School, mixed feelings about graduation are truly unavoidable. Graduating and moving onto whatever may come next is bittersweet, but it’s important to keep in mind that there are hundreds of thousands of teenagers around the world that are feeling the exact same way.
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