Every year a new group of seniors face the harsh reality of moving past high school. While looking towards the future can be a great thing, we at the newspaper want to know what our current seniors think/feel about their last few years here in the high school.
“What is an accomplishment from your time in high school
that you think you’ll be bragging about years from now?”
and
“If you were given a chance at a do-over, what is one thing
from your high school career that you would do differently?”
Senior Socialites
My first interview was with Victor Bravo. When talking about one of his greatest accomplishments he stated that he was proud of “talking to more people, just being more social and talking to people that I never thought I would before.” This connected to his answer for the second question as he remarked, “Being scared to talk to others was my biggest regret. I could’ve had more help from teachers and friends if I talked more to them, so yeah, being more social.” Similarly, my second interviewee Isabelle Taverez reflected on her social life in high school. When reflecting on an accomplishment from high school she said, “The relationships I’ve made with students and teachers,” but also had a similar regret to Bravo saying, “I would definitely work harder in school and talk to my teachers so I don’t fall behind.”
Showstopping Seniors
Some of our seniors thought back to more of their physical achievements, with awards or records being some of their fondest memories. Zachary Simmons dazzled with his response: “I’d probably still be bragging about all of my performances on stage, being nominated and winning awards. I think one thing…is being able to work with Broadway and off Broadway professionals. A lot of my bragging stuff is about musical theater.” He also had a very confident approach towards any regrets from high school stating: “Nothing, because I think it’s important to be confident in your decisions and what you do, even if you do make a mistake or get someone angry it’s very easy to grow from it. People from high school won’t be long term or at least most of them won’t be, so it’s easy to allow yourself to grow and get over it because of that.” My next interview was equally impressive. Jeannah Dossous reminisced on her accomplishments in her extracurriculars. “Track and my athletics: freshman year I put no effort into it but now I put so much effort and hard work into it and what I’ve overcome. I’m able to get through all the overthinking and opinions, I almost broke the school record for girls in the spring.” This amazing feat was balanced by her biggest regret of high school: “I need to stop procrastinating. If I could go back and look at what I could’ve done for college I would have settled easier…If I could go back I would have done them earlier, like my junior year.”
Studious Seniors
One of my favorite parts of all interviews is the different kinds of responses I can get from people who share the same space. This time was no different, with some seniors focusing more on academic achievements. My first interviewee Keilee Mojica enlightened me with a really unique accomplishment: “I would say when I composed an orchestral speech for my senior success project, I spent 5 months on the project and it really opened me to a deeper level of music education. Through that piece I plan to perform at different functions and later publish it.” Additionally, her regret built off of her passions and skills; she remarked: “During my freshman year, I would have learned how to do digital marketing because there’s a lot of good benefits from the industry and in order to excel you need time so by starting earlier I would have been able to see the good effects from that.” My second interview shared a similar theme in regards to their accomplishments. William Tierney Jr. shared that he was proud of “the times I built a camera, crossbow, and cannon for Honors physics, that was really cool.” However, his regret took on a more social route with him saying he would redo “social interactions” stating, “I think I would stick more to myself.”
Satisfied Seniors
Some seniors didn’t have many regrets or it was more based on missed opportunities instead of more direct things from their end. This was nice to see: it gave room for much needed positivity towards the scary concepts of the past and future. Theo Torres highlighted this. They shared: “I’ll always be proud of how quickly I adapted after moving to Brewster from Florida for sophomore year. I thought that since…everyone here grew up together, it would be ages before I had any friends. But I made some good friends within the first few months, and I’ve grown a really great friend group now three years later.” When answering the second question, they said: “For a do-over, I wish I had more fun and candid pictures of my time here! I mostly have posed pictures–I wish I had better documented the past four years.” Arianna Clancy had a different perspective, stating that for a redo they would, “stop caring what other people think and focus more on what I want to do.” To counteract this though they told me about some cool things they were able to do especially for ROTC. They remarked on being proud of “teaching myself how to run supply, use our website CDMIS and getting us a supply closet all to ourselves.”
As we prepare to say goodbye to our seniors, it’s important to look back on the past as we progress towards the future. It seems overall that the Class of 2025 is very content with their high school experiences. Many have amazing stories to tell and don’t have many regrets. As a senior myself, I’ll be talking about all of my fun experiences that I never would have been able to try if not for me attending this school, including these articles! With the only regret I can think of having been me not showing my gratitude properly to all the students and peers who made high school the best it could be. Good luck seniors! 🙂