Navigating Senior Year

Senior year course selection is here. You have finally made it. You’ve found your way since freshman year, struggled through a slump in your sophomore year, and survived most of junior year… so far. But senior year is your year. Your year to choose the classes you wish to take. Your year to drop the classes that are not in your best interest. Your year to forge your path and build towards the major you plan to take for college. You’ve waited this long and now you have the chance to find yourself.

Choosing classes for your senior year is actually quite difficult. There’s the decision of having a ten or eleven period day. And if you want to make it easy for yourself or take difficult classes that can possibly give you credit towards your preferred major. It’s like playing Tetris trying to fit all the classes you want to take for your final year at Fenwick. There are a variety of courses available, ranging from AP Biology your freshman year to the newest addition, AP Psychology. For senior year it’s necessary to fulfill the requirements of theology and English all four years, and your language, unless you’ve skipped a level or two and finished that prerequisite. Otherwise, your fulfillment of any other requirements should be finished by the time of your senior year, allowing you to fill in the rest of your slate for the track you wish to take. If you’re heading towards STEM, it’s highly recommended to take any advanced placement classes in science and calculus, or if you plan to head towards business, economics and statistics are right up your alley. But if you prefer to major in political science American Foreign Policy and AP Government are the right classes for you. It’s alright if you take some classes not within your major, and expand on some other interests of yours.

 

Senior year is about finding your passion, learning more about yourself, and breaking through to your path of adulthood.

 

Counselors have often told us the importance of maintaining a rigorous schedule for senior year, in order to show colleges that you are prepared for higher education. By the time students reach senior year, they are ready for a break. Junior is know to have drowned students with workload and the pressure of getting ready for college visits. However, there is constant pressure to continue this rigor for senior year. We wonder how important it is to take the hardest classes, or whether to take on an easier load in order to focus on the college process. This game of figuring out the perfect classes in order to be a well-rounded student provides constant confusion. Nevertheless, senior year is time to experience our passions, instead of being focused on looking picture perfect for college.

Senior year will probably be the hardest year for any of us. It will be the year of saying goodbye, and leaving our home of four years. But, it will not be the end, for we’re friars for life. Senior year is the most essential year for anyone—colleges will see our final grades and will expect us to maintain those grades— it will be the biggest factor of them all. All those standardized tests we took were just the beginning to the grueling process of common apps because on top of that we’ll have to complete several essays, ask for recommendation letters, and apply for several scholarships. But besides that, senior year will also be our last year to make our mark on Fenwick whether it be on or off the football field, onstage during Banua, delivering those final words at a competition, etc.

Those four more years have now turned into one more year in a blink of an eye. Next year will be the last year for the Class of 2020 to make it count. Senior year will be the year to try new things, to make more memories, and to live each day to the fullest. It will be the year of writing countless common apps, last dances, Friday night lights, Kairos retreats that will rekindle friendships, and give the Class of 2020 a final hurrah.