Dear Senior,

You are embarking on your last couple of months in high school and I know that you are dying to get out. I was. You are so close to moving on to the next part of your life and escaping the cramped hallways of your high school and enclosed walls of your parents' house. The next step seems so exciting and a hell of a lot better than the step you're in now. However, the days following graduation are different, very different -- not always in a good way.

Once you get to college, there are a lot of things you are going to miss about high school. I know you don't think so now, but trust me. I miss Friday night football games. Don't get me wrong, college games are fun, but nothing compares to starting off the weekend with a game under the lights watching your best friends tackle the opposing team. Nothing beats it.

I miss the teachers and classes. Yeah yeah, it sucked being there from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m. everyday, but it was nice. It was nice having friends in all of my classes and teachers who knew me and my entire family. Teachers who I have known my whole four years through high school and some of them even longer than that. Friends sitting next to me, who I have been going to school with since kindergarten. It was a familiar, inviting, and relatively easy atmosphere. College...isn't.

I miss being with my family every day. Sure, it was annoying at times, my parents always on my back asking where I am and why I was late getting home, but it was nice. It was nice having people there to look out for me and talk to. It was nice to have family around. It was nice to have people.

College is fun. It is. We get to meet some really nice people and experience more than you ever thought you would, but please, before you graduate, appreciate the time you have left. In your last months, everyone seems to forget about the cliques and the drama. You realize that these people around you every day will soon be gone; you won't see them at all. You will all go to different universities, sometimes in different states. You will venture into your own lives and your "best friends" become your acquaintances.

Your last months of high school are the last time you get this experience. Your high school years are so much fun, as much as you hate it, it is fun. Those are some of the best years with the best people, and it is worth it.

Sincerely,
A Graduate of 2012