Ever since I was a freshman, I always dreamed of writing a senior column. Even as a 15-year-old Honors Journalism student, I knew that it would be important to write a reflective piece on everything that high school would throw at me in four years. And as I’m writing “the column” right now, I recognize it’s one of the most important pieces of writing I have ever created.

High school is one of those experiences that can make you feel accomplished one day and then leave you broken the next. Whether it was dealing with the grueling hours of homework, the various levels of friend drama or even the isolation and remote learning that was associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, my perception of the world was constantly changing in high school.

This is why when things may not go your way, it’s important to have a support system of friends and family that will be there whenever you need to rant about your least favorite class during lunch, will comfort you whenever you start crying in the middle of class or will be there to spend time with you when you want to just have fun. These are the people that will follow you through each step of the complicated high school journey.

To Edge, thank you for being an inspiration to me. You have made Tower one of the best classes that I have ever taken. You made the Tower classroom a positive working environment for students to feel comfortable in, even during remote learning, where students were given the opportunity to create original content that gets recognized on a national level.

To many of the other teachers that I’ve also had during my time here at South , I want to thank you all so much for the help and support that you have been able to provide for your students year after year. Not only were you able to create a positive learning environment where students were encouraged to be the best versions of themselves, but you have been able to persevere through various obstacles that were thrown at you the past several years, which ranged from online learning to dealing with critical parents. Although it may not appear this way, you all matter to the students. As students leaving high school, we are extremely grateful for the advice and lessons that you have given to us over the years.

To my parents and my sister Grace, thank you for dealing with my antics for the past 18 years. You’ve been through and seen it all for me, whether it would be the entertaining drives into school, the late nights that were spent helping with homework or just the extreme patience that you all had as you heard me repeat the same story over and over again.

And lastly, I want to thank all of the friends that I have made during the course of my time here in Grosse Pointe. Whether we became friends in preschool or I befriended you within the past year, you have made the world a more entertaining place. Through the most exciting times and the most stressful, there’s so many individual moments that I could think of when interacting with you all that makes me cherish everyone even more. I hope we can still keep in touch, but I know you’re all going to do awesome things in life.

Right over left always.