So, you are going to start high school.  During your four years there, you will soon learn things that you wish you knew before entering. With that in mind, here are some things that I learned quickly and, with less than two months of freshman year left, can look back on now:

The first thing that I had to learn the hard way was that you are on your own in high school. Teachers in middle try to tell you that in high school teachers “ aren’t going to do this”. That’s partially true. The truth is, there will probably a teacher who understands you and where your coming from, especially in the beginning of the year when you’re trying to understand everything and find where you fit in.

One thing middle school teachers were right about is that teachers don’t care about your grade in high school. Whether  you are failing or not, you have to make the effort and help yourself. In middle school, most teachers would come find their student in the lunch room and get them to make up their work. Here, if you don’t come during your time, during lunch, or after lunch that’s completely on you. I learned that you have to be independent and know that there’s a time and place for everything and once your grades start falling it gets harder to bring it back up. I realized that when it comes to your grade every single point counts in the end.

You are going to lose some friends. It is just  something that you can’t really control, especially when you go to separate schools and people start to be surrounded with other people, which means that you and some of your friends will  start to grow apart. However, along with losing people, you will also make plenty of new friends and be surrounded with new energy.

High school is going to be stressful, like really stressful, and you will spend countless nights staying up trying to finish that essay that’s due at 11:59 pm. Or you will be up late studying for that test, which is worth the majority of your grade.

As much as I want to leave high school already,  from what I’ve heard from most upperclassmen is that freshman year goes very fast.  With less than two months left of my freshman year I want to enjoy it. I know once I leave I’m going to miss it as much as I miss the memories I made in middle school.

High school wasn’t what I expected and I blame movies that dramatize high school as a very different place. There  aren’t people who burst into song in the middle of the hallway, there aren’t big food fights, there aren’t a lot of things that movies bring alive. One piece of advice I must give to any incoming freshman is to be true to yourself because it is really  easy for a person to fall into the wrong crowd or go against everything they believe in to fit in instead of just being themselves.