Senior year is scary, but the last week of senior year is even scarier. After working incredibly hard for 12 years, the realization that your childhood is over creeps in slowly with every passing day of the last week of senior year. While the hardest part of senior year is over for students at Rex Putnam high school, being the three weeks of IB exams, the last week of senior year is also incredibly stressful. In every class the teachers remind you of how exciting it is to be finally done with high school and going on to bigger things, but many people forget how scary it is.
“While I am really excited for life after high school, I am still quite scared for what is to come. I don’t really know what I want to do yet, but I am excited to figure out who I want to be in life,” said senior Bronwyn Vass. She also talked about how nerve-wracking it has been running around school during excused periods to try and find all of your teachers to sign your senior checkout card. “Sometimes teachers are in class and cannot sign it, or my counselor was in a meeting, so I couldn’t get him to sign it either.” In addition to having teachers sign it, she saw one of her friends having to carry in all of her golf gear mentioning how “there is just so much stuff to do that I never thought of”.
The senior checkout card is not the only thing that is going on in the last week of senior year. On June 6th there is the senior awards night, which honors students who have achieved great things. some of the accomplishments that are celebrated is having a GPA of 3.5 or higher, completing the STAMP test, completing the IB Diploma, and so much more celebration worthy achievements. This is also the last day of school, which is also quite scary for seniors. The next day, June 7th, is an incredibly busy day. There is the senior breakfast with all of the teachers and donuts and coffee as a last celebration as a grade level before graduation, and of course the practice graduation. There cannot be any mistakes at the real graduation. Later that day is the senior assembly with the entire school, which celebrates all of the seniors and how much work they have put into themselves and their education over the last 12 years. More specifically dealing with all the stress of college applications, scholarships, FAFSA/ ORSA, maintaining their GPA, keeping up a social life, working, family, relationships, sports, and having some time for themselves to decompress. The last week of school for seniors ends on June 7th at 11:34am when the assembly is over.
Rex Putnam’s graduation is on June 12th from 6:30pm until 8:30pm, after which the graduates get to have one last hurrah as now graduates, and no longer seniors. The parents have organized a grad party at an unknown location, which goes on until 5:30am in the morning of the 13th of June. After this, the seniors are officially done with high school and have survived. “I am really looking forward to being done. While it is really scary, I think there is so much more life out there after high school,” Vass mentioned. Congratulations to the senior class of 2024!