As the spring of one's senior year rolls around a lot of mixed feelings emerge. The chaos of applying to schools settles and turns to the nervous excitement of award season. With honors cum laude status, scholarships, sports awards, and superlatives looming over my head, I began to feel very unsatisfied with myself. Every success was matched with something I was not "good enough" for. My acceptance to FSU came with the let down of not getting an athletic scholarship. I was surrounded by friends, yet not noticeable enough to win any superlatives and make the yearbook. Now I know that I had many good things happen to me and focusing on those is what I should do but like most people, as much as we wish we did not, we find ourselves focusing on the things we do not have more than the things we do. To only stir up my mixed emotions more, the "senior awards" night rolled around. A gathering by invite only where students accept scholarships on stage in front of their peers and families.

The day I received the little blue letter in the mail inviting me to the banquet I felt so proud. Only one other girl in my friend group and I had received the invite and for the first time, I began to allow myself to feel confident in my intelligence. I had applied for all the local scholarships offered through my high school as most kids do. Everyone got dressed up and arrived at the performing arts center that night nervous to get their awards alive with the excitement that comes site graduating high school. The presenters worked their way through the distribution of the awards and slowly the night ended with the honors cum laude plaque awards. I got called up to accept my cum laude plaque and I really really wanted to feel proud. I wanted to feel happy and special but instead, I wanted to cry. I knew I was smart, I earned the plaque didn't I? There was a set of about 5 of the same students that racked in most of those scholarships that night. Despite being there and taking home a plaque I found myself comparing my achievements to theirs.

These honors and scholarships are meant to empower kids and acknowledge their achievements in high school. The auditorium was filled with hardworking and deserving kids that night yet only five main students walked away with most of the awards. I know that I felt empty after. Instead of my honors cum laude status lifting me up and making me proud that I had gotten good grades in a challenging environment, I found myself comparing my work ethic to those of the top kids in our class. Each time they walked up to the stage, there were many, the crowd roared and clapped and I just sunk deeper into my embarrassment. I am not a supporter of the "participation trophy" people yet each kid invited to that banquet had worked hard and had an impressive four years of high school.

The question I am contemplating in this article is if these senior awards are beneficial to students leaving high school. Upon graduating, students should feel proud and excited about college. If a few days before the big night they are asked to sit in an auditorium and watch their parents and peers congratulate kids that did better than them, will this affect their feelings about graduation itself? And how do these negative emotions carry into the difficult transition that is the freshman year of college?