Now that I am nearing the end of my high school education, it’s nice to look back upon these past four years and how much I have changed.

Coming from quarantined middle school, going straight into freshman year was a whirlwind. My middle school was a magnet school in Jersey City, and I never returned after COVID. I hadn’t been in school for 18 months, then once I started high school, my perspective changed.

I have been through a lot in high school, and one of the most important things I wish I knew freshman year was to hold my tongue. I feel like, as I’ve gone through high school, I’ve learned to hold my tongue more often than I would have during my freshman year. I feel like COVID definitely put a halt to my maturing, and it took me a while to learn to filter what I say. As I’ve gotten older, I realized what an important skill it is to be able to be more “mysterious,” as we call it now. I feel like now I am definitely more “mysterious” and reserved, as opposed to my freshman year 14-year-old self, who would just talk too much and always needed to have the last word.

Another thing I wish I knew freshman year was that time is limited. I feel like I let high school get away from me, thinking graduation was so far away. I feel like I wasted time trying to get time to pass instead of enjoying my youth and the lack of responsibilities. I can barely remember freshman year when I didn’t work outside of school and I had no responsibilities. Now, after working all the time and being pushed into adult life, I can see all of the missed opportunities where I could have had fun or had an experience I could’ve had if I weren’t working. On the other hand, I’ve made enough money to meet the tax threshold and have to file every year, which is remarkable as a teenager.

I also realized I could have tried harder within this limited time. I felt like junior year I got the opportunity to really apply myself, and I wish I had prioritized school like that freshman year. Freshman year, I didn’t try whatsoever and didn’t really learn anything in my classes, and when I transferred to NVD, it was a completely different environment. I wanted my first two years of high school to pass so badly, I didn’t try to be successful during that time, and I kind of regretted that as I started applying to colleges.

Although there are many things I would have changed, I don’t regret anything and I am eternally grateful for every learning experience that shaped me into who I am today.