TO ALL THE 4TH YEARS

→"Dude, just a reminder"←

The way to the cotton patch is through the school house door…

Even if you hate school, try to struggle through it. Enlist friends or tutors or attend summer schools, but don't quit before getting your high school diploma.

"If you don't graduate when your young, you'll regret it when your old."

Everyone loves vacation days, but school isn't all bad. School is where you can discover interests, develop skills, and unlock strenghts. You may not like every subject every day, but there must be atleast one you do enjoy. And while conjugating foreign verbs or memorizing dates may not be anybody's idea of a good time, but being able to speak another language or hold your own in a discusssion about Pearl Harbor, Helen of Troy, and Powers of man feels good. (There are payoffs in studying hard).

Sometimes it's really boring to listen and listen, study and study… If you don't like the current teacher or principal or classroom, just keep the faith…! The grade you're in lasts just one year. Besides, just as high school can be more interesting than grade school, and college can be the best of all. Why? Because, instead of having 7 teachers, you can have more! And you get to choose more of your own courses and meet tons of new people. And many of the students in your classes will be learning because they want to be there, not because they have to be there.

In college, you can immerse yourself in whatever you want to study. You want to read novels? Become an English major! You have a passion for Arts? Film? Computers? Go for it! You want to study something totally different? Then flip through the course book.

What if you never want to tackle a particular subject again? You may not have to. If you ace an advanced placement exam you may be able to place out of a science, law school, or grad school where you can study your chosen field to the exclusion of all else.

Your plate is full? Don't get overwhelmed—-get started!

Take the first step. Brainstorm. Scribble down notes and ideas, large and small, good and less good. Try to visualize the project completed, figure out which chapter or chunk to tackle first: the first one or the hardest one or the most appealing one. Problem is, if you don't get strated, you'll never finish.

The best reason for blasting through homework, sooner versus later, is that then you can be carefree and spontaneous. But then, are you such a perfectionist that you stay up past midnight dotting is and crossing is when your homework was in good shape before the clock stuck at two in the morning? Do you expect all A's as all the time? Do you study for hours for every little quiz?

Ease up! Chill out! You're still a minor. You don't have to pay for the rent or worry about insurance or shoulder the worries of the world. Grades are not everything. There's no such thing as perfect, and you don't have to get it all done right now.

Do your best, sure. But don't over do it. Shooting for people is okay, but shooting pool are shootong hoops.

Always remember, "SCHOOL GETS MORE INTERESTING AS YOU GO ALONG."

To all the 4th years, congratulations and good luck!