It's the most dreaded time of year for college students: finals season. Extensive exams, papers, and projects are all standing in the way of students and the reprieve of winter break. Around this time, I would also have my high school finals, another high-stress point of students. For all the stress my high school may have caused me, it did teach me one thing in particular: how to be prepared to college and more specifically college.

Going to a Catholic college-prep school was full of academic challenges. My teachers gave us difficult assignments, sometimes several at a time, and we were expected to complete them while also juggling our busy extracurricular schedules and somehow still manage to get eight hours of sleep (which never happened). I did not like the assignments while I was in high school, but I am thankful that my teachers gave us such a hard workload. Without the practice throughout four years of high school, I would be severely overwhelmed this time of year in college.

Thank you to my teachers for pushing all of us in our challenging class. For giving us a workload that appeared too much but knowing we could handle it. For not letting me take an easy way out in high school and to push and challenge myself in my academics. I hated the four years of stress, sleep-deprivation, frustration, tears, and general feeling of overwhelming that came from numerous honors and AP's courses, but I am grateful for all of it right now.

I can say that without a doubt I would not be doing as well as I am in college right now if it were not for my high school. My high school prepared me for college more than I first realized and am prepared to admit, but now during college final season and looking back on my high school days, I realize that all of the work I put in was just culminating in this moment. I could be neglecting my studying and work and just curl up in a panic over all the work I have to do, but that's not the way my high school taught me. I was taught to lift my head up and power through my work, to push myself, and to not stop until I finished.

Without learning that work ethic and being challenged by my teachers, I would not be at Washington College feeling prepared for finals. Thank you, SJCP, for the four years of preparation you gave me without me even realizing it, and for setting up to thrive in college.