I Did It!

Congratulations! You’re done! You did it! You’ve completed countless tests and quizzes. You’ve read thousands of pages, and listened to years of lectures. You pushed through that hard math class. You were seen in a bathing suit in gym. You sat next to the kid with hygiene problems in every grade because alphabetically, his name comes right after yours. You began this thirteen year quest at four or five years old, and now you’re done. Celebrate that! Feel good about that! Not everyone graduates high school.

It’s Over.

High school is weird in that you’re with the same people for years, not by choice. It can be difficult to make changes to who you are, and change the way people see you, when everyone already knows you and has an opinion on you. Now that you’ve graduated high school, you can leave whatever you want behind. You don’t have to see the people who made fun of you, or that annoying lunch table, ever again. You can drop any label you’ve had. You can abandon the embarrassing moments and the mistakes. You are about to enter a new stage if your life.

Who am I?

After graduation, you might be starting college, or you might be starting work. Regardless of what you do in this next stage of your life, nobody will know who you are. Your future classmates and professors won’t see you as funny, smart, friendly, outgoing, laid back, passionate, or philosophical. They won’t see you as the popular kid, the geek, the hockey player, the singer, the valedictorian, the cheerleader, or the gamer. You are a blank slate to every person you meet, and it’s up to you to paint them a picture.

Who do I want to be?

Many people believe that it’s during a transition that you’ll have the most success making a change. If you want to be a non-smoker, start college as a non-smoker.  If you want to be a vegan but your high school friends thought the idea ridiculous, now’s your chance to try it. If you didn’t feel like you could be yourself in high school, here’s your opportunity to start this new stage of your life in your own skin. This transition out of high school will give you a new lifestyle, a new schedule, new patterns, new friends, and new ideas. It’s easier to add new changes to new patterns, than new changes within the old ways.

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Look, I basically sold my soul to my parents for three months to earn enough allowance to buy Jurassic Park on laser disk, so I understand what it’s like to want the next best thing with all your heart.

I especially understand when the next best thing is college, which means freedom, no parents, new friends, no more social cliques, and getting to be a grown up.

So let me play devil’s advocate with you because it’s likely you’re going to ignore your parents’ pleas to you to “not grow up too fast.” But hey, don’t grow up too fast. Sure high school can seem lame because everyone’s telling you what to do and you’re just like, so over it.  But, let me try to convince you why you shouldn’t let yourself get too over it too quickly.

5 reasons to relish high school while you can:

1. Your friends
Chances are, you’ve made some of your best friends in high school, or even just that one in a million person who also prefers mustard over ketchup 100% of the time. Our high school years are essential in forming who we become largely because of the friendships you make. So even if you’re not popular, or you feel too popular, whatever your angst-y angle on the situation is, your high school friends are special because they’re going with you on this weird roller-coaster of adolescence that nobody else will ever quite understand. So don’t be too rushed to say goodbye to them.

2. The guidance
You’re probably sick and tired of people telling you what to do, but if you can just spin it a little and think of what every teacher, parent, or counselor is saying as suggestions that you can take or leave at the door, it might be little easier to swallow. The thing you need to grasp is that you’re not an adult, as mature as you may be. And being in high school is a unique opportunity to be around adults who have had experience in life who can guide you. Your high school is a community that is literally built to help you succeed. Get the most out of its resources and your relationships before your pop a wheelie out of there.

3. The extra-curricular activities
High school, of all places, is the place to learn how to be involved in something, to grow with a team of people, and to eventually take on leadership positions. Whether it’s sports, DECA, debate, theater, choir, student council, volunteer, or anything else, your high school activities give you the opportunity to be passionate about something and to also expand yourself as well-rounded person.

4. The fleetingness
Blink and it’s over. You’re in your mid-40s wishing you could just be back in those high school halls, high-fiving your pals as you pass them in J-Hall, stopping to chat with your crush of that moment, and leaving for biology with the delightful and exciting sense of butterflies in your stomach. High school, in retrospect, is super fun. You’re just with a bunch of your peers all day learning about things you never knew before. But yeah, then it’s gone.

5. The preparation
I know I’ve been a bit sentimental about this whole relish your high school years thing, and it’s not like I wish I was back in high school or anything–I mean, I totally do–there’s a badminton rival I’d really like to meet face-to-face with again–but here’s a non-sentimental point. High school prepares you for college. If you’re all “I’m just so over this!” and you decide to graduate high school early, for the wrong reasons, you won’t be as prepared for college as you could’ve been.

So yes, it’s okay to delete your MySpace account, but just enjoy the days you have left in high school.

Are you “over” high school? Or do you think students take high school for granted? Leave a comment below.

If you’re graduating, you probably have a lot of things on your mind like how to get a job or how to say goodbye to your friends before leaving for college.  But the thing that is most definitely, most certainly, most undoubtedly concerning you the most is how you will stand out during your graduation ceremony.  If everybody’s in the same robe and mortar board, how will your parents know who you are? How will they ever be able to spot you amid the sea of hundreds, or thousands, of students clad in your school colors?

The solution is not only easy, but fun: decorate the top of your mortar board.  If everybody else has a black mortar board, a little splash of color will make yours pop.

Here are 5 ways to decorate your mortar board:

1. Personalized Message
Send a shout-out to the people cheering you on during graduation!  Using colorful tape, pipe cleaners, glitter pens or whatever you have up your sleeve, write out a message! Something short and sweet usually does the job, like “Hi, Mom!”, your initials or celebratory “We did it!”

2. Your Graduation Year
Have some class pride! Spice up your mortar board by hot-gluing cut-outs of your class year to the top. This is a great way to make your mortar board a more meaningful keepsake.

3. Say Something Meaningful to You
It may be a strange place to spread the word, but if there’s a positive message you want to send out, why not do it atop your mortar board? Just keep it appropriate for the occasion.

4. Colorful Flowers
Once again, bring out the hot glue gun.  Stop by a crafts store and pick up some exaggerated fake flowers.  Glue on your flower arrangement, and give friends and family the garden view of graduation.

5. Game board
You can get all sentimental with your mortar board with the aforementioned options, or you can be a little tongue and cheek with it.  Considering mortar boards are in fact boards, you can design the flat space to look like a game of checkers, Monopoly or any other familiar thing that would fit well on a mortar board space.

Do you have any other suggestions? Comment and let us know!