Senior Year. The most loved and sometimes dreaded year of high school. Almost everyone is excited that they get to be done with high school but some people are not ready to go out in the real world. I would say that I have been feeling both of these things throughout my senior year. Here is a list of things I have found useful during senior year.
- The Inevitable, “What are you doing after graduation?”
For me, I thought that I knew what I was going to do with my life but I was wrong. At the beginning of senior year, I thought I was going to be an elementary teacher, then I thought about being an ag salesman. Going back and forth between these two things was something that was going through my head all of the time. What I have learned from this was that it is okay if you don’t know what you are going to do with the rest of your life, because honestly we are 17 or 18 years old, we should not have to decide what we are going to do. Some things that helped me get through this time was just telling myself that it is going to be okay and I will figure it out. It might not be right now, but the decision will come to me sometime in the future. I also went to a few job shadows to figure out what each of the job’s included. The last thing that helped me was talking to other people. Sometimes I would just talk if someone would listen, these people included, my parents, my sister, my family, my advisor, and my guidance counselor. All of these people will be willing to help you and guide you, but not make the decision for you.
- The stress of senior year.
I am a very anxious person so even a little thing can make me very anxious. With senior year being so busy for some people, especially for me, I had to find ways that I could calm my nerves. Note: all of the things that I am going to say worked for me, they might not always work for you. The first thing is that I do not take on so much responsibility all by myself. I used to just do everything by myself without assistance from anyone. This helped me a lot because people were willing to help me, I just had to ask. By accepting help, I did not add to my stress level or as much on my to-do list. Another thing that I did is something called grounding. This is when I try to refocus myself when I am feeling very overwhelmed. Grounding is when I count down from five by finding something with each number. Here is how it works: 5 things I can see, 4 things I can touch, 3 things I can hear, 2 things I can smell, and 1 thing I can taste.
These things have helped me through my senior year of high school and I hope they can help you too!
Natalie Brabec, VP of Competitive Events