By Tatum Pappas ’16

The best part about senior year is figuring out where you will head off post graduation. After the stress of applications is over, it is a complete waiting game, but once accepted — then what? We work so hard in high school to get into the college of our dreams, but post-acceptance, the point of school becomes increasingly pointless to seniors, hence the term “senioritis.” By the end of December, there is already a large number of students who are dead-set on where they want to go and their time in school seems to more or less be a bust.

So here’s a proposal: If everything is figured out and you know where you want to go, the school should allot more time to allow you to decide how to spend your last few months at home.

Picking your college, is sort of the first step into “the real world.” In order to truly put their best feet forward, students should be able to do more of what they want the second half of senior year. They should be able to give back to the community or learn more about what they may want to major in through different specified classes. This year’s senior class is not only academically strong, but motivated, and we should be allowed to use that to give back.

“I am so excited about being accepted to Cornell, but I don’t plan on taking my foot off the gas pedal until after midterms,” senior Izzie Caine said. “However, I really want to give back and do community service.”

Spending 18 years of your life in a small community like ours, we have a remarkable support system. It is important to not only be thankful for those people, but to truly do something to prove your gratitude.

“If I had the opportunity I would love to spend my time where I went to preschool, Temple Agudath-Israel, and volunteer there,” said senior Harry Goldstein, who just committed to Emory University. “It’s nice to go back to the place I started at.”

Another way to spend time, is taking advantage of classes or programs that are truly beneficial to an incoming freshman. Choosing a major is not only extremely difficult, but also stressful. To have a preview of what you want to do as you are entering into college would lessen stress during your freshman year.

“I would love to have the opportunity to take some business courses,” senior Victoria Luongo said. “My schedule never has had space to do so, but now that I am going to Penn State, I wish I could know a little bit more about this field and explore my options.”

Some students have spent their weekends of high school volunteering at different organizations. When a student has a passion to do something so often it should not be a burden to find time to do so, but instead encouraged and enabled by the school.

“I always help out at University Hospital and find myself looking for more time to go there. I would love it if I could help out on the weekdays,” said senior Kylie Donohue, who was just accepted to Notre Dame University .

There are so many opportunities for what students could do with their time once they decide which college they will attend. It would not only be a useful end to senior year for the students, but it would also benefit the community and their future endeavors.