Senior year. The year everyone seems to talk about until it finally comes. It seems so far off until you realize it’s your class graduating this year. Senior year is the year filled with many lasts, preparation, and stress. Between going to school with some of the kids you’ve grown up with your whole life and trying to get ready for the next chapter of your life without them. This is also the year where it really hits that you’ve grown up. Even if you go to college next year you’ll never be at this same school with these people again. Looking for colleges and figuring out your path after this last year can also be a stressful time.
Lisa Rodino, a career center adviser, said her best advice to seniors is to “never attend a college you’ve never visited.” She suggests to pick a top four or five colleges and then narrow it down to the top three. Rodino also said to “keep all the doors open.”
Rodino knows not everyone has everything figured out their senior year and that it takes time. She also supports exploring all areas of study you want to pursue that way when you graduate college and start doing that job you are doing something you like and enjoy to do.
Seniors this year are also making memories by being more involved and attending more sporting events more frequently. Varsity volleyball player at Arlington High School, Delanie Theruet, plays outside and right side hitter and has been playing for nine years. Theruet said she’s “trying to focus on the positive and make the most of it all because its my last season in high school.”
Theruet would like to attend a community college and continue to play or attend a four year university. She’s making the most of her senior year by hanging out with friends and enjoying their last year together.
Some seniors are cramming between many clubs, sports, applications, and events. Alyssa Acosta is one of these many. She is in Key Club, National Honor Society, Sports Medicine, District Committee, Cheer, and Knowledge Bowl. She is hoping to attend either UCLA, University of Oregon, or Duke. Acosta is most excited to “have all the opportunities I have seen the upperclassmen have over the years.”
To prepare for her college applications she’s been working on her college application essay and researching all her possible school picks. She’s making sure to know which colleges are her “targets, reaches, and dreams.”
Acosta wants to make sure she knows everything that way she knows she’s making the right decision with the school she decides to attend. Seniors are packed with school work and big decisions this year but still are remembering to enjoy and soak it all up well their still here.
