Mr. P's Challenge 5

6. If you were to look back on your high school years, what advice would you give to someone beginning their high school career? (Simmons)

Many people say that high school either makes you or breaks you, I personally think that though this is true, there is more to this phase of your life than we think. That statement about high school either making or breaking you is intimidating. If you always base your actions fearing this statement, you basically wasted your one-time opportunity of living life like you didn’t care about anything.

            When I was in 8^th grade, we had the 9^th graders come to dorms and tell us about what life is like in high school, both in dorms and in school. The dorm life seemed like pure freedom; we could order on the weekends, keep our tuck in our rooms and lights out was an hour later. The academic part of high school seemed like a black spot on white paper. Then on of the 9^th graders said, “high school either makes you or breaks you.” After this the whole image of high school life being complete freedom, broke down and crashed in my head.

            I started taking homework and school really seriously in 9^th grade. I was doing this till I was half way through 10^th grade, and then I stopped and thought; this is insane, I am only fifteen. So I started to relax more about my grades, and I had fun doing all the other things that I wanted to. Yes high school is very important, but you should make sometime for yourself too. Just because everyone says that high school is a crucial step towards college and you should be serious about grades, I think that you should think about studies as a fun and challenging time instead of a crucial time to get into a college. You should always try to make your high school days fun for yourself, because if you don’t then the overwhelming work will wear you out and you will resent your high school life instead of enjoying it.