Dear HS senior,

I was like you. I was ready to head off to college before I had even been accepted anywhere. I was ready to leave IB and high school behind me, to move on to a more 'mature' place, where there would be people like me who were smart, motivated, and high achievers.

It's great to be excited about college, and you should be. It's an exciting time in your life as you close one chapter, and open up another.

As exciting as all of this is, please don't rush. Enjoy the moments when you get your college acceptance letters. Enjoy playing your final sports games for your team, or being president of student government. Enjoy taking classes with your closest friends. Don't take things so seriously, and don't be so uptight. You'll wish you had been more relaxed later on.

Tell your deepest secrets to your best and dearest friends now, because soon you'll all be split up across the country.

Go to your favorite shops and stores with friends, and laugh until you cry. Tell that boy or girl that you've liked since freshman year that you like them. Go to prom, and dance the night away. Study like you've never studied before so you can graduate suma cum laude.

Go back and thank all the teachers who changed your life, who inspired your dreams and passions, and who you owe for helping you become the person you can be.

Thank your God for bringing your this far, and thank Him for where He will bring you in the future.

Like Peter Pan, don't be in such a hurry to grow up, because before you know it, you'll be a grown-up, and it will be too late to go back and create memories. Create them now while you can, so that you have beautiful memories to look back on later on.

Take your time, and let it all soak in before it disappears.

Soon enough you will walk across that stage with your diploma in hand, and joy in your eyes. But don't forget to look back, and remember where all of it came from, as well as where, and with whom the whole journey started.

Good luck,

Samantha Smart, High School Class of 2016