Senior year: perceptions vs. reality

Editor’s note: This story is the first in a series focusing on high school seniors, their final days at school and their plans for the future.

By: Madeleine Johnson
   With their high school days drawing to a close, South Brunswick High School seniors are thinking about college, prom, graduation and everything in between.
   And even though the warmer weather and longer days mean that the school year’s end is just three months away, the seniors remember exactly how they felt coming into their final year of high school, and the goals they had set for themselves.
   "My hopes were to maintain my current grades, get into college and have a great baseball season," Michael Mariano said. "It’s a time of your life where things are changing quickly and you want to enjoy it as much as you can."
   Daren Caesar had few concerns at the beginning of his senior year and is looking forward to moving on.
   "I felt confident going into my senior year. I’m trying my best to finish the year strong with little to worry about," he said. "My main focus was to just graduate and finally be able to say I have a high school diploma. I feel like a little kid waiting to open a present Christmas morning."
   Some students had mixed emotions when it came to their senior year and all its challenges.
   "Coming into my senior year, I was nervous because I was taking more challenging classes, such as advanced placement courses as well as honors classes," Hilary Berk said. "I knew the expectations would be greater than everyday normal classes. I was also excited because I knew this was my last year at the school, so I wanted to make the best of it."
   Other students had their senior-year expectations blown away pretty quickly.
   "I was excited about coming into senior year because it meant I only had a year left before college," Stephanie McIntyre said. "I was told that senior year is the easiest of the four, so I felt comfortable. The exact opposite ended up happening as everything piled up. There have been days when I had to take a step back and breathe."
   Alana Asch was just as eager for her senior year to begin as she is for a new start in college.
   "I was excited for senior year," she said. "(I am) excited to know that next year in college is a fresh new start. I’ll meet people who know absolutely nothing about my past so they’ll have nothing to judge me by other than for who I actually am and have grown to be — likewise for me to them. It’s like a sigh of relief to know I’m almost there, almost out of high school, into college and then the real world."
   Joe Clancy didn’t spend too much time worrying about what his senior year would be like, though he is a little nervous about what will happen after his high school graduation.
   "It’s a mixture of being anxious and excited," he said. "I want to be a part of a college program. I’m expecting a dramatic change."
   While each of these six students all plan on attending a four-year college once high school is over, only Joe and Michael have made a final decision. Joe will be attending U.S. Military Academy at West Point to study engineering and Michael will major in economics at the University of Pennsylvania.
   Joe is not quite sure what to expect, but is prepared to face a rigorous routine during the next four years, especially since he’ll be facing both physical and academic challenges.
   "We go through two weeks of military training and then I’ll get involved in football," he said. "I’m planning on majoring in engineering — it’s a really good engineering school. I’m going to face a lot of challenges academically. I want to see how good I can be. It’s going to take everything I have to graduate."
   Michael regards college and his future with a curious, optimistic attitude.
   "It should be a great experience to see how well I can adapt to bigger expectations and (the) workload," he said. "I hope to make a difference on a personal level with everyone I meet. I don’t expect to change the world per se, but I want to be remembered as someone special."