Dear seniors,

As you begin your last months of high school, my advice to you is to ignore anyone who says "these are the best days of your life."

The only people who truly miss all of high school are those who peaked there.

Don't get me wrong, not all of high school is bad. There are little things that you should be cherishing before you walk across the stage to accept your high school diploma.

Enjoy every "last" you can.

Savor every football game — win or lose. Enjoy every band concert. Even though the practices can be brutal, enjoy them because in college athletics are mainly for those with scholarships. Enjoy every laugh with your teammates, your bandmates, your classmates. It may sound silly now, but go to your senior prom and your senior banquet — if you don't, I promise you will regret it later on.

These are some of the aspects of high school that you will grow to miss once college starts. But not every moment of your four years in high school will be a happy memory.

Some parts of those years will make you sad — not getting the grades, being pushed by coaches and teachers, not being able to get out of bed in the morning because you were too nervous to even show up to school because of bullying, the late night studying, depression, having to miss the big game to work a shift because you needed to help out will the bills that month — whatever the reason is, there are some things that can be left in high school.

High school can be a hard time for some people. It is the part of everyone's life where you aren't entirely sure about yourself. You have yet to fully discover who you are and what you are capable of; what your purpose is in life and where you are going.

If you can enjoy high school that is wonderful for you, but just realize that for some of your classmates it was not.

For these people, hearing that the past four years of hell were "some of the best years of their lives," is terrifying. They need to hear that it does indeed get better afterward. That these are not the glory days and that it is okay to be different.

So instead of giving yourself the false impression that the past four years were the peak of your existence — because trust me, being 17 and being a benchwarmer for varsity football and lying to your mom to sneak out and get drunk on Mike's Hard, is not even close to how great life can be — approach life after graduation with optimism.

Enjoy the friends you have and don't let the others get to you. Stop letting the little things get to you and speak up for yourself. In all honesty, you won't see most of these people after graduation anyway, so might as well speak up for yourself, and for others, to those who put people down.

Grow up, get out and good luck in college.