Blog 7

In the style of Ray Matteson

When you think of summer, you automatically think of freedom, as in laxity from school. You think of fun in with friends, spending day in and day out in the sun with friends. You think of the late nights. What you do not think of is preparation for your senior year of high school: college applications.

Graduated juniors see the summer as a break from the nightmare that junior year had been. Between the athletics, academics, and intensive testing, the list of things to do seemed to be at the back of every student’s head relentlessly.

At the beginning of summer, juniors are carefree and happy and think that summer will be relaxing and enjoyable. They know it is early in the summer, but they need to give more thought to working ahead on college applications, giving extra thought to the fact they will have to accommodate summer academics with their ever busy schedule.

Their summers are being held together by late nights, hot days, and cold water to relax in. They will eventually point their fingers at the mirror and tell themselves they should have gotten more serious sooner.

This is not your typical relaxing and carefree summer, even though it is a typical summer for the junior concerned about his or her college experience. Writing essays, making lists of colleges, deciding possible majors, thinking which dorm to live in, finding your room mate composes just a few of the tasks with  making the college experience as good as it can be.

There are still a few questions to be answered before students decide exactly how to lay out their lives. Do they want to go to public or private school? Which scholarships do they need to apply for? Is athletics something that could heavily influence their choice of school? So many questions, so many things to do in the application and decision process.

With the first day of August will come the first serious thoughts of college and the fact that seniors will in less than a year be making huge life choices. I know it seems awful to associate junior summer with all the hard work after spending the previous nine months battling through the school year, but with all the work required, it is kind of hard not to. 

Leslie Cundiff

Sports Writer

Bellaire TPP