Every book, movie and TV show portrays senior year of high school as the best year of high school. As I approach the halfway point in this momentous year of school, I have yet to feel the greatness of it. I am taking four AP classes, creating never-ending piles of homework and projects on my desk at home. I spend most of the time that I am not studying for school working on college applications and scholarship essays. I am stuck in this in between point of no longer feeling like a high schooler, but not yet being able to call myself a college student.

While applying to colleges, I am starting to figure out what classes I want to take and generally what I want to study. Yet I still find myself sitting in AP English Literature, reading books that I cannot relate to. I no longer feel excitement towards classes that I know I will not be able to use in my future. I wonder what classes I will take in college, and whether I will enjoy them more than some of my mandatory high school courses. I am excited to take classes on topics that I am passionate about or interested in.

So far, senior year has been constant work with so much riding on my performance, that I have not had the time to truly appreciate this year. I have been going through the motions of school and extracurriculars without much thought because I am so used to my patterns and I am so ready for a new adventure.

In just over six months, I will graduate and leave behind all the people I have spent the past four years with. I will be on my own, away from my parents, fending for myself in college. I do not know where I will be or who I will be with, and this unknown terrifies me. I hope to find a place that feels like home to me, but I'm unsure what will happen and whether the college I pick will be the best choice for me.

Also, leaving for college means leaving my friends. I love my friends, and it is frightening to think about leaving them in just eight months to start a new life in college. I constantly wonder which of them I will make an effort to see over breaks, and which friends I will see for the last time at graduation.

As cliche as it sounds, I am so ready to start college but also terrified of my future. I know that college will change my life, putting me on a path towards my career and then adulthood, and I am still trying to figure out how I am old enough to take on this new adventure on my own. But in the back of my head, behind my worries and doubts, I know that I will be able to do it and starting college will be my best time yet.