For as long as I can remember senior year symbolized everyone’s greatest year. It’s supposed to be exciting, full of memories, and good times; you have the rest of your life ahead of you (even though that’s true 100% of the time). What people seem to leave out is that this is also the scariest, most nerve-racking, and arguably the most important time of your life.

You are suddenly bombarded with the questions: “What do you want to study? Where do you want to go?” And the worst part for most seniors is that you are supposed to know the answers to them. Just last year you were in the middle of high school, and now you’re supposed to know what you want to do until you sixty-five? Many people have an idea or two of what they want to do, but how can you so sure that you will pay tens of thousands of dollars on it. Luckily for me I have known what I want to do since elementary school, but that doesn’t make me hate those questions any less. Whatever the reason is why you hate answering those questions, they are inevitable and at least in a few months you will be able to answer at least one of them.

Not only do you have the monumental task of finding out what you want to do for the rest of your life and where you what to go, applying to colleges is a daunting task. None of us have ever done this before and everything is brand new. Each college has a different process, even if they are on the Common Application. Even with help from parents, counselors, and every one else, applying is still extremely stressful.

I’m sure in a few months, once we know where we are going, the senior year we always envisioned will come to life. We will be excited about senior prom, senior trip, and most of all the big, bright future.