You’ve spent your entire four years of high school preparing yourself for college and getting ready to graduate. You look at the past and reflect on how things were and how much they’ve changed. How much did you change? What obstacles did you face? How mentally drained were you from school? How has everything you’ve been through shaped you as the senior you are today?

As the class of 2022 reaches the end, the majority of us are looking back to when we were all freshmen and reflecting on how we were back then. These past four years have been very challenging to the class of 2022. We missed half a year of our sophomore year due to the pandemic and we experienced online school our junior year. Though it was very challenging, seniors have pushed through it and have managed to make it through. We’ve tried to enjoy our last year as much as we can.

When asked about what they were most excited about this last year, senior Jesus Garibay said that, “Coming back to see my friends or probably being ASB president. It was fun to get back and take on a leadership role.”

Of course, not every senior had the same response. Each senior had a different set of responses on how excited they were during their senior year. Some of them had mentioned how they were excited for senior activities while others responded how they were glad to finally be finished with high school.

Senior Armando Echeverria said that he’s excited about leaving.

“This may sound like an upsetting response, but I do not see it that way. I find it exciting because it’s like a notification that my journey here is ending and a new chapter is commencing.”

Class of 2022 has been through a lot during their high school years. During their sophomore year second semester, they took a “break” for their last semester only to find out that they wouldn’t return to school in person during their Junior year. During the end of their junior year they found out that they’d finally return and jump back to in-person their senior year.

Senior Yunuhen Trevino shares that going back her junior year was shocking.

“I honestly thought that we would not go back to school like at all but I am really grateful that we came back because I got to see my friends and reconnect with the teachers.”

The first day of school was very weird for a lot of seniors because most of them hadn’t seen each other since sophomore year. A lot of seniors had also lost hope of coming back and were very sad that they weren’t going to experience their last year.

Senior Brianna Cazales claims that she didn’t have hope coming back to school.

“I think it like changed how feel about graduating now because I feel like there are still part of a high school experience that I never got to experienced so it sucks but I am glad that we got to come back now.”

Everyone’s experience was unique, and we all confronted various challenges that were similar yet different in terms of how they affected us. Each struggle that we all faced has affected us then and still has affected us now. Some of our struggles are procrastinating and losing motivation to keep up with our work

Echeverria said that it was struggling transitioning from online to in-person.

“I would say I have faced many challenges, but the most recent one is adapting back to in-person learning. Considering that we went from our entire junior year and summer college classes being online to being completely in person the fall after made it a huge challenge for me to adapt.”

A lot of seniors struggled with jumping to in-person classes then going online and then going back to in-person again. It was mostly due to the fact the majority of them felt like they weren’t learning efficiently when they were online that they either procrastinated or struggled to turn in work.

Senior Mix Walker stated that they didn’t like doing online classes because of how much they slacked off.

“I get very easily distracted and so because I was working from home I couldn’t stop myself from slacking off or not really paying attention to my work,” they said.

Eventually, things started to come to place and seniors started to apply to college and financial aid. Now, every senior is committed and sure of the school that they’ll be attending in the fall. But making such a difficult decision was very stressful for them as some of them even considered going far from home or staying close to home.

Cazales, who is now going to the University of California Irvine, stated that making a decision was very hard and difficult for her.

“I’m so nervous about everything and I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next couple of months but what I tell myself is that in a couple months I will be where I’m meant to be,” she said.

Luckily, we’ve all been prepared as to what’s to come next. Taking college classes is one thing MCHS has prepared us from the very start. Although it might’ve been taking similar classes as other students or taking different classes, we’ve all had some sort of experience with what college is going to or will be like.

“I believe that Middle College 110% has prepared us for college. Most if not all of us have been taking college classes since our freshmen year, which means we have been preparing for this each year of high school.” said Echeverria.

After four years of taking high school classes and college classes, being involved in extracurricular activities, some even working, our couple of days is coming to an end. To any upcoming senior reading this, seniors leave you with their final words.

“Make a list of scholarships and deadlines for yourself,” said Garibay.

To add onto that, Walker said, “Even though teachers tell you to look up scholarships you should start applying to them as soon as you can.”

Congratulations to the class of 2022, you have made it this far and you couldn’t have done it without your hard work, strength and ambition. All of your hard work has finally paid off and are getting ready to start a new chapter in your life. Even if you faced multiple challenges and hard obstacles in your life you managed to keep moving forward and everyone is beyond proud of you and the person you have become.

Lastly, our senior AVID teacher Mrs. Nguyen would like to leave a message for the class of 2022.

“I can’t do the work I have without the love and respect of my students,” she said.