Emma Snyder

Every time people find out I am a senior, they always ask me what my future plans are — a relatively easy question to answer. But once, I was asked if I regretted anything about high school. “Only that I hadn’t joined newspaper sooner,” I had said. While that’s true, this question has stuck with me and it’s something that I have thought a lot about. 

It’s not that I regret a lot of things from high school because I don’t. I am actually proud of the things that I have accomplished in the last four years. It’s just that I have also learned a lot. I know now that high school is an opportunity to try new things and to take chances. 

I’ve learned not to take myself so seriously that I forget to enjoy experimenting with my elective schedule and discovering new passions. I have learned that high school really is too short to spend time participating in clubs and activities that I don’t enjoy. 

For a while, I spent so much time filling my schedule with electives I knew I wouldn’t enjoy because it was safe instead of taking a risk and trying something new. Eventually, I decided to start in the journalism program sophomore year despite not understanding what a journalist really was and my senior year, I joined badminton despite having never played before. Both made me uncomfortable at first but, both have also become some of my favorite parts of high school.