Senior year. It seems like I have heard about it all of my life. It’s what every student looks forward to: the stress free schedule, driving to school, the almost-college life, prom, graduation and it all leads up to being done with high school.  But senior year seems to be a lot different than I had ever expected. I have never truly understood all that goes into senior year itself until I saw seniors deal with the stress of their education first hand.

I think that senior year will fly by in a blink of an eye, just like freshmen year did. But I also think that there will be tons of good memories and opportunities to meet new people in those four years,” Sureena Johnson, Freshman at Bel Air High School said.

Senior year involves a lot of stress, “lasts”, goodbyes, and expenses. Where I always thought seniors focus on excitement of graduation, in actuality, they worry about the unknown of college. It seems to me that seniors’ time and attention goes into the SATs, college applications and college essays. Not to mention, seniors still have to focus on keeping their grades up. To me, it seems that senior year is actually the hardest grade level with the amount of stress that is put on each student.

Not only did I underestimate the responsibility and worry experienced by seniors during their senior year, but I also underestimated the emotional aspect. I always thought that senior year would be tough because it’s the last year being with all of the people you have built friendships with, but until I went to high school I didn’t really understand how much you really do with friends outside of the educational aspect. Going to football games is super fun: Friday nights under the lights and watching your team play is like a movie. But for the seniors it is their last season experiencing that. Whereas for freshmen, sophomores and juniors, all get to continue into next season. For seniors, there is no next season with all of your friends yelling, “Go Bobcats!”

But it’s not just hanging out with your friends that I have learned seniors will miss. While playing sports this year and seeing all of the seniors in their uniforms and dressing up for away games and events, I have realized that it’s the last season they will play in those uniforms. In your senior year, you will play your last game as a Bel Air High School Bobcat. At the end of the game, it’s not just “until next year” it’s “goodbye and thank you.” Your high school athletic career is over and you have to play your last game with your team of four years. For me, that seems like an unbearable experience.

Taylor Patrick, freshman at Bel Air High School, stated, “I think that my last game will be really emotional and I will probably cry after it. It will be sad that my high school lacrosse career will be over, but I will be excited to play in college shortly after.”

Although I have never really thought about it, senior year is a very costly experience. There is always fundraising going on for prom and the senior trip because everyone is trying to give the seniors a remarkable senior year. However, senior year isn’t just fundraising, it’s spending money. Seniors, and their parents, have to pay for the senior class trip, senior pictures, prom dresses, tuxes, shoes, prom tickets, corsages, award banquets, class rings, and more. But all of the money does get used and go into making senior year one never to forget.

Then it seems as though all of the “lasts” come. The last homecoming, the last football game, the last pep rally, the last assembly, the last school play, the last sporting event, the last time walking in and out of school, the last time walking through the halls, the last time at your locker, the last time complaining about walking up all of the stairs, and the last time seeing friends every day. When you walk out of the doors at the end of senior year, the place that you have spent four years in making memories and being with friends, is no longer where you go. Your school is now college and that time that seemed like an eternity to get to senior year, is over.

But I think that during the senior year, there is only one thing worse than experiencing the “lasts,” and that is the goodbyes. Seniors will slowly have to say goodbye to their friends whom they won’t see on a daily basis anymore. They will say they’ll keep in touch and hang out even when they are in college, but sadly I have learned that rarely happens. And one day you will have to look people that you have known since you were five years old in kindergarten, and say the most painful word: goodbye. You then tell all your teachers goodbye and thank them for the things they have taught you and for making you who you are today. When the school bell rings at 1:58 p.m. and your high school career is over, it is time for graduation. At this moment, when it hits the seniors that it’s over, they realize that graduating and being done with school isn’t as great as they had dreamed of.

“I think that goodbyes are inevitable, but of course everyone will say it’s going to be sad to part ways, which it will be, but it is also means that a new chapter in life is starting and that’s what I’m anxious for,” Sureena Johnson says.

Senior year isn’t all full of sadness and goodbyes. Senior year is also a time full of firsts and creating memories with people that you will remember forever, even if you don’t stay in contact with them. For many people, senior year is the first time getting to wear togas during Spirit Week, attending prom, and Senior Week. It is also the time that seniors receive their first college acceptance letters. Although senior year can be very sad, it is equally happy and exciting.

I know that I am only a freshman and I don’t know everything about being a senior or experiencing senior year since I have never experienced it first hand, but I know that although it is hard and stressful, it is also full of rewards and allows you to get ready of the rest of your life. Watching the seniors this year and seeing what they go through makes me want to cherish the time I have now, with the people I have, so that when my senior year arrives and it comes time for me to say my goodbyes, I am happy and content with my four years as a high schooler.