It starts with a change from hanging out with your best friend, to avoiding them, or a change from studying for hours to forgetting to do your homework. These are just examples of how a person’s life and identity changes throughout their youthful and busy years in highschool.

A change from middle school to highschool is a big one in itself, but the real change occurs between the years of being a freshman to a senior in highschool. Something that high schoolers tend to forget is that they are still young adults, but the pressure of school stops kids at this age from using their leisure time. The expectations that arise from students in high school show them that this is the time to build their life, and if they waste this time, then their future is at stake. While that may not be the case, for students it all feels like a big test that dictates their entire future. High schoolers forget about friends that they have had since elementary school, because they try so hard to do good at school, ending up sacrificing their social life. Some students drift apart from their friends and family in an effort to maintain school, while others can’t handle the constraints and demands of high school. Another change is how students change in the aspect of their academics. Not only can their grades decrease, so can their efforts in putting in their best foot forward when it comes to the usual quizzes and tests of the week. Some people thrive in high school while others struggle to even wake up in the morning. The growing responsibilities either push people to embrace the pressure or it coerces students into their own shells while they procrastinate their work. As mentioned before, people only consider the changes of going from middle school to highschool, but the changes that occur through the years of highschool are the ones that tend to stick with a person for a lifetime. These manners of procrastination or working well under pressure only form when people are put through tons of exertion throughout their high school experience, and these habits tend to last for a long time.

While some students just forget about their friends, others turn against them. The pressure in highschool is not just to do better than before, it is to do and be better than everyone around you, even if they are your friends. Academics can get in the way of friendships when friends get to competitive environments. Students turn on each other to make sure that they do the best they can for themselves, unfortunately leaving their friends behind. Many students choose to avoid their friends, because they want to make a different name for themselves in high school. They want to build new social connections and they intentionally avoid the old relationships that they have built. Why? Because people start caring about their social presence and what other people think of them in high school. Some students want to change their personality which no longer aligns with their old friends from middle school or early years of high school. Children also intentionally avoid their friends when they realize their own self-worth and value. Many students in middle school are taken advantage of by their “friends”, but after a while in high school they understand that they need to prioritize their well-being over people that they call their friends. Children evolve into versions of themselves where they understand their friends better and they understand themselves better so they focus on their life instead of somebody’s else’s opinions. They use their new found independence to build their own individualistic lives without letting others interfere with their own goals and purpose.

Lastly, the changes that occur between a child and their parents throughout highschool is one of the most important events to occur. Children can evolve into different versions of themselves which can cause them to build stronger relationships with their parents. Some young adults find comfort in returning back to their parents, leading well-built and long lasting relationships with their families. Some kids may even get annoyed by their parents because they experience physical, mental, and social changes. In another case, family dynamics may even change when children start to get jobs and stop relying on their parents. Children can choose to avoid their parents due to internal changes and they start focusing more on their friends or school, rather than cherishing the time left with their parents and siblings.

While the years of high school may not be the first and last chance that students get to make a life for themselves, it develops important qualities in people that tend to last for a long time. While some people can handle change in ways that hurt themselves, many others use it to build better versions of who they are, so they evolve into young adults with a collection of experiences from being a freshman to being a senior.