Something I learned from the first semester of senior year is that I have had senioritis since freshman year. I asked my sister how to stay motivated to do school work and she told me that it is hard to stay motivated because I have senioritis, and it was then that I realized that I have had senioritis this whole time. I also learned that there is no point in taking things so seriously academic wise and it is important to go to things such as football games in order to let off some steam and make the most of your final year in high school. One piece of advice I would give to someone transitioning into senior year is that you should stay on top of homework so that you can do all the fun stuff that happens. For example, one week I was procrastinating all my homework and because of that, I had to do everything on Friday night and couldn’t go to a football game. With that being said, it is not the end of the world if you don’t do your homework on time as teachers can be more forgiving than you think. Over the last six months, I have learned that going to college will be my savior. I have never liked high school and the lifestyle in college sounds much more fun and relaxed. My perspective on grades also changed, I realized that getting good grades isn’t as important as my parents make it out to be. Ever since this realization, I only check my grades about once a week compared to last year when I checked my grades every day. I also realized that being lazy is not a bad thing. This semester has been my laziest semester and now that I am at the end of the semester, I am chillin, stress-free. I found out that my lazy lifestyle works out fine when it comes to school work and I don’t have to change my lifestyle just because someone thinks I should. 

Lessons I am taking away:

• Maximize fun, Minimize work: While I have been living on this philosophy for a while, I kicked it up a notch this semester. If I had work that wasn’t necessary, I didn’t do it, if I had work that was mandatory, I did it as quickly as possible, for example, why read Beloved when I can just read the SparkNotes, it’s faster and more convenient. The result of this lifestyle? Everything is fine, my grades are fine, I’m not going to end up homeless, and best of all, I haven’t gone insane.

• Senior year doesn’t matter: Let’s be honest, no one really cares about their grades senior year. If you are stuck doing homework all day, you are missing out. Football games are a thousand times better than doing math homework. Your grades don’t really matter anyway, especially during second semester. You will never catch me selling my soul doing homework instead of hanging out with my friends. Teachers are generally more lenient anyway so worst case scenario you could turn your homework in late.

• Filling out government documents is a pain: The FAFSA might be the worst form that ever exists. Filling out that thing might be the worst experience of my life and I never want to do it again. It’s also useless because I doubt that I will get any financial aid anyway. Lesson learned, Always leave at least a month of time to fill out any government document, it is a major pain.

• Think about your future: Lately, I have been thinking about my future and I have realized that I don’t want to work a regular 9-5, sounds boring and probably is boring. I am going to major in computer science and I decided to start early and learn now so I get a head start. I will continue to learn about coding and might try to become the next Jeff Bezos, you never know what might happen.