The way I look at it, the high school experience is like being given dozens of puzzle pieces and being asked to fit them all together. Each portion of the puzzle may symbolize friendships, school work, sports, work, standardized tests, relationships, etc. For some people, each piece seems to fall into place easily, and they find themselves in the possession of a perfect puzzle. Other people, like me, have solid bits in some areas, but struggle to make pieces fit in others. Unfortunately, once four years are up, most people won’t leave high school with a complete puzzle. I know I certainly won’t.

I won’t pretend to reminisce on my time here in high school, because I cannot honestly say that I particularly enjoyed these past four years. While I could easily use this column to criticize the environment at MHS, I’ll resist the temptation. That would be disrespectful to the many amazing, influential people, both students and teachers, who have helped me grow throughout this chapter of my life. To them, I’d like to give a huge “thank you.” You have been noticed. So rather than complain about certain aspects of MHS, I’ll take this opportunity to instead reflect on how my personal choices affected my experiences. After all, the buck stops here.

For me, I took high school at face value, seeing it just as stepping stone on my way to college. I was the type of person who would head directly home after school, hang out in his room for a while, hit the books, go to sleep and repeat the process each day. As a naturally more introverted person who hardly ever found opportunities to see anyone outside of school, socializing was difficult to say the least. Often, I’d become lonely and wonder what experiences I was missing out on. I’d even question whether or not I’d made a mistake when choosing my path.  

Looking back on it now, I realize that I was both right and wrong in my approach to high school. On the one hand, my strategy paid off. I was accepted to the college of my choice (Stanford!) last semester and now I’m unbelievably excited and optimistic for the future that lies ahead of me. On the other hand, I feel a little bit hollow on the inside, as if there was something more that I was meant to take away from my time here at MHS. Despite the spectacular ending to my high school experience, I still have a long list of regrets I’ll carry with me to California.

To all of you underclassmen out there, listen up. During high school, I definitely believe it’s important to create one major goal you’d like to accomplish by the end of your senior year and to pursue it vigorously. It can range anything from getting admitted to an Ivy League college to being a starter on the varsity basketball team; the point is that it should be something that you are most passionate about achieving. This worked for me, and I honestly believe it can for others too. But at the same time, and I cannot stress this enough, don’t neglect the other things that make your teenage years worthwhile either. Be willing to try new things, take the time to form bonds with people and be on the lookout for ways to create lifelong memories. Live your life and do these things while you still can. Nothing comes from being idle and reluctant to try. After all, you won’t be a teenager forever.

And now back to that corny puzzle piece analogy. You may not finish high school with a completed puzzle, and you shouldn’t necessarily be expected to. After all, that’s a lot of pieces to keep track of. But once high school is over, and you look back on what you’ve created, what will you see? Scattered puzzle pieces or an image beginning to take shape?