When seniors first walked through the doors of high school for the first time, COVID masks pulled fresh from their faces, with the fear that it would be as terrifying as their middle school teachers say, others believed that high school would be just like the musicals portray it.

However, as the four years passed, students have gone through experiences that have shifted their perspectives and shaped who they are now.

For many of these seniors, this shift in perspective started with joining a club, meeting a person or taking a class that ended up broadening their horizons and opening their eyes to possible opportunities they could explore.

Finding a career

Senior Arturo Cintron had no idea who he wanted to be.

“My expectations were just to get through the year and see what I was going to do when I passed,” Cintron said. “I was clueless when I first got here.”

After joining Culinary Club his freshman year, Cintron decided on his future career path.

“Chef Karr really got me into culinary and helped me [get] an idea of what I want to do,” Cintron said. “My expectations now are to be able to get into Valencia and to be able to get into a good culinary job.”

Since taking culinary club for three years, Cintron has learned how to cook, which has made him more proactive even in his personal life. He has since learned how to better search for jobs and improve his resumé.

Similar to Cintron, senior Owen Kuebler, through the Robotics Club, decided on the career he wanted because of the programs at Hagerty.

Prior to joining Robotics, Kuebler did not participate in many school activities.

“I was inside all day,” Kuebler said. “I didn’t do that much besides Boy Scouts; that was [the] only other real activity I did, but I didn’t really [continue it] in high school.”

But since joining the Robotics club, Kuebler discovered that he wanted to pursue a career in mechanical engineering.

“The Robotics Club was really cool because it got me into mechanical engineering,” Keubler said. “It’s helped me work with a lot of tools like Onshape [to] do modeling stuff, but also to get an idea for how things are actually designed and built and planned out. I also met a lot of really fun and smart people there.”

Sometimes, students take classes that benefit them more than they initially thought it would.

Senior Trixie Tarbert took Anatomy and Physiology, but did not expect the class to help her out as much as it did with her future career in neonatology.

“I thought it was going to be a bunch of useless stuff, but it’s the most [relevant] class that I’ve ever taken,” Tarbert said.

Because of Anatomy and Physiology, Tarbert has been able to break down the names of the branches of medical fields. Terms like neonatology can be broken down into neo (new), nato (birth), ology (study of).

“That kind of word breakdown is what’s going to be so helpful later on,” Tarbert said.

While through classes and clubs, some students found a career that they wanted to pursue, for other students, it was a class or club they took that gave them the confidence to pursue a career they were unsure of taking.

Senior Finch Uhing-Wagner took many art classes from Painting to 3D Art to Ceramics, but the class that had the most impact was Advanced Placement 2D Art and Design.

“AP 2D art changed my life most out of all of them,” Uhing-Wagner said. “It [included]a lot of self-expression and saying things that I didn’t know how to say with words. So, it was nice to get all of that off of my chest.”

Uhing-Wagner also grew more comfortable with showing his art to people because of AP 2D art, and has decided to pursue a career in art.

“I was actually super unsure what I was going to pursue for a career because I wasn’t sure if I would be able to live off [of doing art],” Uhing-Wagner said. “But being able to build my skills and push my limits and [receive] encouragement [from] all my teachers really helped my confidence in my skills. I think I have the drive to improve my skills enough that I could be happy doing it for the rest [of] my life.”

Finding a niche

At the beginning of senior Annabella Gonzalez’s freshman year, she had many expectations for high school—but did not anticipate how much different it would be from how it was portrayed in the media.

“I thought that high school was going to be like in the movies, and everybody was going to be jumping with glee and the classes were just gonna be really, really fun,” Gonzalez said. “Nobody [is] jumping in circles, so that’s nice.”

Since freshman year, Gonzalez’s expectations have shifted. She had joined many clubs, but the one club that had the most impact on her was culinary club.

“[Culinary club] taught me how to better cook and manage as a team, which is something that I struggled with before because I just wanted to take over,” Gonzalez said. “But you have to give other people a chance to do stuff too and work together, and it builds relationships as well.”

For senior Isabella Pagan, she had a stark contrast in expectations when it came to what she thought high school would be like.

“For my freshman year, I thought it was gonna be a really scary place, from what I’ve heard from half of my teachers back in middle school,” Pagan said.

However, her club experiences changed her high school experience and her expectations.

“I feel like Key Club and Best Buddies have changed my life because you get to meet new people,” Pagan said. “It’s made me more social. I would stay in my house, 24/7, and just not go out in general. But now that I [have] joined these clubs, I get out of my house.”

Senior Cailey Bolden had also stepped out of her bubble like Pagan when it came to joining Majorettes.

“I was kind of on the fence [about] joining it freshman year because I was really nervous about high school [and] how big it was,” Bolden said. “But then I saw one of the other girls on the team, and she was like, ‘You should join.’ And that 100% set [it] in stone for me.”

Ever since Bolden joined, she has learned to be confident.

”[When] we go to competitions and we perform against big crowds and other teams, you get over that stage fright and [are] able to put yourself out there and show up,” Bolden said.

For senior Nadia Pelayo, AP Psychology was a class she never thought to take at first.

“I wasn’t sure if I would be up to taking it, but [AP Psychology] was a fun class,” Pelayo said. “It was just a cool learning experience. I found [out about] stuff I’d never known. It was a different workload that I wasn’t used to, but I adapted to it, so it was nice for me.”

Pelayo found it easier to try new learning experiences since taking AP Psych, and had found that the class introduced her to new concepts that interested her.

“I’m not looking into that for a career, but it did introduce me to things I’m interested [in], [which is] the human mind in general and how people [are],” Pelayo said.

Finding a friend

Sometimes, it is not the class or club that a student takes, but the people that they meet and the friendships that they make that change a person’s life.

“I’ve been [in] a lot of clubs, but the one that I’ve spent the most time in would be theater,” senior Olivia Ahlqvist said. “I met some of my best friends from there, and they have really changed my life.”

Theater is both a class and a club, and students have the opportunity to develop many friendships through the projects and performances. Ahlqvist had met seniors Ilyssa Reichardt and Samantha Orne, and spent time with them in both her theater class during fifth period and the musicals.

“Ilyssa is very spontaneous, and she pushes me out of my comfort zone to do things that I otherwise wouldn’t do,” Ahlqvist said. “They both give me a safe space to be myself, and that has changed my high school career. [My life would be] really boring, I probably wouldn’t be myself as much.”

Bolden has also gained many friends because of majorettes.

“When I go out, I go out to hang with the kids at majorettes, or people I’ve known because of Majorettes,” Bolden said. “If I wasn’t [in] majorettes, I would be closed in and not very social.”

Some students have also developed student-teacher relationships that have helped them throughout their years in high school.

For senior Zach Dettman, it was being coach Jacob Colquhoun’s teacher assistant in his junior year that had helped him.

“[It] definitely helped because I still use his advice that he gave me to use in my real life, in school [and] everything,” Dettman said.

Dettman was Calhoun’s teacher assistant for financial literacy class. Calhoun would offer Dettman advice that Dettman would use eventually.

“When I was going through a tough time in a friendship, some of the advice that he gave definitely helped get me out of that [friendship],” Dettman said.

Tarbert also had help from a teacher, specifically holocaust studies teacher Megan Thompson.

“She’s been stuck with me for [my] entire mental health journey, and she’s been helpful the entire time, even when I wasn’t her student,” Tarbert said.

Conclusion

Regardless if it was a class, a club or a friend, seniors around campus have changed since their freshman year. Some found their passion, some gained a new talent, and some became the person they wanted to be.

For many of the seniors when they had first walked into high school, they believed high school would be many things from a terrifying place to just like how the musicals portray it.

But through it all, seniors have learned many new skills and have gained many friends that have changed their life for the better, if not that, then for their high school years.

“[Life] was good,” Gonzalez said. “It was just better after [I had joined culinary].”