Getting Ready For High School

By TB, Age 13

Being as an 8th grade student, and the year coming to an end, comes time to reflect on the times you've had as a middle-schooler. No longer will you be treated like 'young adults.' Now we face the real world as independent high-schoolers. Reflecting back on the bad and good of middle school is a huge step in improving yourself as a person. It can teach you the good and bad choices you've made in choosing friends, or the good or bad choices you made as a point of action or emotion.

My best advice to give to any middle school student is to not be afraid to show who you really are, because someone is bound to like you for who you truly are; and don't fall into peer pressure. Parents would be extremely surprised now-a-days to find out how many kids my age have smoked cigarettes, or smoke weed, or have gotten to serious into relationships.

My best opinion is to not have a boyfriend or girlfriend in middle school. Most of them mean nothing, and end badly. The excitement for the fresh high school start is irreplaceable, though the nerves come when you wonder if you are going to have the same friends. The ones you thought you would have forever. I think if you both truly care about each other, in a friendship way, that you will keep in touch, but don’t limit your options and latch onto those few people. I am looking to broadening myhorizons, and search for new friends, but never forgetting the old; Girl Scout promise, hahaha. (: