Senior Year Review

It probably won't sink in until I'm in Chicago, but I don't feel like I'm a high school graduate.

My year's been a lot of fun. I got into my top college through early decision, so I was just done after the first semester. This plus easy classes just made life so chill. One of my recently had the good idea of doing circle times with our friends to get closer with them before leaving for college. Personally I feel like a lot of my friendships are pretty surface level, so these were a good opportunity to develop deeper relationships.

This year I've also tried being bolder in my friendships: I've started to take more initiative when doing things and just agreeing to whatever. I think at one point I just realized that it's my last year with a lot of these people.

I think I've had more free time this year, but I've used it less productively. I have projects that I've long wanted to do, but for some reason (or maybe not "some reason", looking at you Youtube), I never did them. My projects list has even grown because, within the last year or so, my interest in literature has grown. Sometimes when I lay in bed waiting to fall asleep I'm struck by an idea for a story. Hopefully I'll finish them so I can post them here. I've been struggling to write character development—my ideas are mainly big picture and thematic.

Here some tips for senior year:

college apps:
- start early: especially start the college search early; make sure to set out specific time to do it—personally i easily lose track of time doing the mundane, easy grind of school; some useful sites were https://www.collegexpress.com/lists/ (a useful subsection is https://www.collegexpress.com/lists/explore/?chapter_id=104) https://www.collegeessayguy.com/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/fx9oco/juniors_start_here/
- be authentic (seriously pick colleges based on what you like and what they offer—specifically avoid parental and societal pressure and avoid putting stuff in essays just because you think admissions officers will like it)
- pick easier classes to give yourself time to work on college apps
stay off social media (YouTube is a big problem for me)
seriously stay off, I've wasted so much time 😭
have a good sleep schedule (I've been sleeping in until like 2 everyday since school ended 😭)

One of my friends made a (mostly) college-admissions oriented TikTok, and they got into MIT so here's a link to that: https://www.tiktok.com/@kellyoncampus/video/7233115048963607851

Also, here's a teacher review:

AP Econ with Guttman: Bad, avoid taking this class/teacher. He is a very stubborn person and tends to explain things the same way over and over, even when people aren't getting it. He has a midly interesting outside life, but it really doesn't make up for his terrible teaching. The content isn't too bad if you're pretty quantitatively-minded and read the assigned readings. Grades were bad.
AP Gov with Nyberg: Nyberg's a pretty cool guy, and he can make class really interesting. Content-wise, the class is pretty boring and repetitive. In terms of grades, I think it's the average social studies class.
APES with Eaton: Eaton is a really interesting guy. His backstory is very inspiring and just crazy. He's also a very chill guy and is very understanding. I think he teaches pretty well considering the content of this class is broad. The assignments he gives out, though, are generally pretty low quality and useless. My advice is to just make flashcards during his lectures (Anki is what I'd use) and to literally speed run his assignments. In terms of grades, everything is free except his tests.
AP Lit with Hayden: Hayden is a good teacher. He's very down to Earth and very easy to talk to. His lore is a bit sad though. The content is pretty typical of an English class. In terms of grades, he's fair and on the more lenient side (but not super lenient).
APCSP with Kummar: She isn't staying this year so I'll not make any comments.
Mobile App Development: We didn't have a teacher consistently throughout the year because the old teacher left, then a graphic design teacher picked up the job, but she was pregnant and left, then we got a sub, who left to get another job, and then we had a relatively consistent sub. I assume our first teacher will return next year, so I'll comment on her. She is very chill and very kind. For example, I did calc 3 online first semester, and the times overlapped with her class. But during tests she let me go to the back and take it (I pretty much skipped class the other days). Although, this class is just self-learning as she doesn't know much CS, nonetheless mobile app development. Class is free.
Office Aid: A decent amount of free time, but not as free as an off-period.