By Daisy Tsaftarides — It is almost bitter sweet to say goodbye to a place which I have called my school for the last four years. This place has become a part of my life and my daily routine. Wake up, go to school, go to bed and repeat.

When I got into high school I could not wait to graduate and now that graduation is creeping up on me I find myself with the same excitement to experience what life will be outside of these school walls.

I hear students say how much they cannot wait for their lives to start. What I hope students start to see is that even in high school, our lives have already started. During high school, you start to pave the road that you are going to head your life down. You see the people you can and cannot trust, you learn who your friends are and you learn your boundaries and breaking points.

Having a successful high school career is not about how popular you are or how many parties you go to. If this is your mentality, I strongly hope you take a step back and rethink your life because you will miss out on the whole point of the high school experience. The high school experience is about finding out who you are and pushing yourself to find your limits with education. It is also to get your ready for the world outside of high school so that you know what you want to do when it comes time to be out on your own.

Facing the facts, half of the friends you make in high school will not remember who you are 10 years from now and all of the parties you went to will all just be a memory that no one will care about, not even you.
The four years you spend sitting in classes will be the years that you look back upon and have the most memories or the most regrets. Saying high school is easy would be a lie because it is not but what you make of it will determine your success.

[Updated Aug. 7, 2017: This article has been reformatted for consistency.]