Second-semester senior year. 

Usually associated with ditching class, surplus free periods and stress-free nights, high school students often yearn for this moment since freshman year. It is when the all-nighters, the weekends spent studying at home and the prioritization of school are finally deemed worth it. School is just school, minus the stress of getting into college. 

As a second-semester senior, it’s the first time school isn’t my utmost priority. Before I elaborate, that doesn’t mean I suddenly don’t care; it’s just not the number one thing on my list. After all, I can’t go from stressing over my GPA or my performance in a class to simply not caring. In fact, some people assume that second-semester seniors lose all motivation and desire to succeed academically, but I believe that’s a misconception. Especially at Menlo, we’ve been trained to work hard and put immense effort into our academic endeavors since we enrolled at the school. We can’t abruptly go from 100 to zero in terms of effort, and our teachers still expect us to deliver and put forth our best work. 

So I do still care, and I do still want to do well in school, but the stress factor is less present. 

Second-semester seniors should take this well-deserved time to relax — to worry less about finding self-validation in numerical values, like grades and test-score percentages. We should take the time to create a (somewhat) regular sleep schedule that doesn’t revolve around school work and class projects. We should relish spending time with friends and family without the underlying worry of sacrificing studying time. We should even binge that Netflix show we never had the chance to do before. 

But what if second semester is meant to be something more. What if we used it for something more. 

What if we devoted this time to self-discovery and determining a better sense of self. And what if we prioritized ourselves while also bettering ourselves. I don’t mean becoming the most philanthropic, selfless version of ourselves (although that’s important too). I mean taking the time to reflect personally. What if that meant taking the time to determine who we want to be and the approach we want to have as we enter college and beyond — a refined sense of personal stability. 

For what feels like the first time in my life, I can wholeheartedly prioritize myself, not my academics. Or I can at least prioritize discovering myself without the lingering stress of school. This means solidifying personal beliefs and values through everyday interactions, whether they be in social, school or work settings. It means honing my self-worth. According to a Michigan State University article, self-esteem development is critical for high school students: “Self-esteem is an important internal asset for adolescents. Self-esteem does not refer to an inflated sense of self-worth or to false confidence. Rather, it is a person’s set of perceptions or beliefs upon which he or she bases a sense of self and significance.” 

With a more defined self-identity, students are more likely to succeed in their college and future endeavors, according to a Scientific American article. Adolescence is the ideal time to create a refined self-identity because, often, “instead of deciding who they are over and over again, adults may just retrieve what they already know about themselves,” developmental social neuroscientist Jennifer Pfeifer said in the same article. 

This personal exploration could mean being more aware of how we want to act in social scenes, work environments and academic settings. It could also be as simple as establishing how we want to approach others and the daily mindset we want to have. It could mean taking this mindset and applying it to how we want to spend our free time outside school. Maybe it seems straightforward and easy to do, yet I feel like I haven’t had the prior time to be purposefully selfish — to fully devote my time to establishing a sense of self. 

So yes, second-semester senior year might be filled with excess free periods and more relaxed school nights, but I challenge myself and my classmates to use it as an opportunity. If we choose, it could be a time where we decide who exactly we want to be as we enter the world beyond high school — a time dedicated solely to ourselves.