End of an Era

Annie Tan

The end of the 2021-2022 school year is upon us and for seniors, it can be an emotional time.Whether it’s a happy, sad, or indifferent feeling, these feelings are ones to remember. The last day of school for Whitney Young seniors is technically May 31,2022, and 20 days away at the time of this article’s writing. However, it is never too early to reflect about the end of the year. In this instance, some seniors and I reflected on our time as students in this school.

A senior here, Jazmin Unzueta ‘22, said, “I like the freedom we have to be ourselves and find out who we are with the amount of electives there are, the student run, activities, and no uniform requirements.” High school plays a big part in a person’s development and Whitney was a good high school for students to safely learn new things about anything. The freedom that students have at Whitney Young, when compared to other schools, is much higher. For example, we have the freedom to go out for food no matter what grade you’re in, as well as the ability to go anywhere in the school for lunch, whereas most schools have designated lunchrooms, we do not.

As we reflected, we often thought about our regrets and things we wished we would’ve done in our time here. Liliana Castro ‘22 reflected, “my biggest regret is not joining all the clubs I wanted to. I wish I was able to participate in so much more. I also regret taking study hall freshman year. SPREAD THE WORD, DON’T TAKE STUDY HALL, TAKE COMP SCI INSTEAD.” Here, Liliana recommends that study hall is a bad decision for some because it takes away from a possibility for credits. Be mindful of what classes you take each year if you want to do a work study during senior year. Be sure to also take advantage of clubs and activities because it’ll be super fun and help in making new friends.

Looking past high school, we also thought about the next big step, college. College is a completely different experience and can be very scary. Jasmine Martinez ‘22 shared, “I’m excited for college because I want to meet new people, have new experiences, join many clubs, to have fun, and do sports. I’m looking forward to the freedom I’ll have in college compared to high school so I can figure out what I really want to do in life.” Her optimism and excitement can be found through many other seniors. It’s a completely different atmosphere compared to high school.

No matter what we do at our time at Whitney Young, or any other high school, we’ll always end up where we should be. Even if it doesn’t feel like it, life will find a way to work itself out. So, when we enter high school as teenagers, we come out as adults, even though we often don’t feel like them.