5/13/16 

 

 

With graduation approaching, many look back on the last four years and reminisce – and sometimes those memories lead to regrets.

Whether it was being a class clown, a procrastinator, skipping class, not participating in school activities or just simply not asking that girl to the school dance, almost everyone has something they wish they could go back and do over.

 

SNN interviewed this year’s seniors as well as some teachers to find out what they wish they’d done differently in hopes that maybe their advice can motivate those who come behind them.

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Sometimes the choices you make can affect your future. You may not realize it until you find out you can’t go to the college you wanted to go to or play the sport that you’ve been working toward playing.

 

For instance, as senior Dante Scott looks back on his high school years, he wishes now that he didn’t skip so much during his sophomore year.

  

“It lowered my GPA and now I can’t go to the school I want to go to,” Scott said.

 

He didn’t realize the impact of his actions until he was told that he couldn’t play football anymore because his GPA had gotten too low.

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Geometry teacher Kayla Rodak says that her biggest high school regret was procrastinating.

 

“I was a really big procrastinator. I procrastinated on a lot of my senior projects,” she said.

 

Rodak was so eager to leave high school she didn’t feel as though she got to really enjoy her senior year like she should have.

 

“I was ready to leave high school. I was just so excited to go college that I didn’t do grad bash or senior trips,” she said.

 

But Rodak also gives advice to seniors, saying that they should try everything at least once and reminds them that they cannot change the past.

 

“Go to school, whether it’s community college, university, or a trade. Try everything that you think you would be interested in. If you fail, you fail. Don’t be afraid to leave people behind that you think aren’t going to better you. Leave the past in the past,” Rodak said.

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Landon Peterson is a senior who now regrets being a class clown his freshman and sophomore years.

 

“I would just always be very loud and disruptive in class and never get my work done,” Peterson said.

 

He too, like Scott, didn’t realize this impact until his junior year.

 

“My GPA went down, and I realized that I couldn’t go to the college that I wanted to go to after that,” Peterson said.

 

He says that his GPA is still low and he thinks about it all the time.

 

“I still have to deal with the consequences,” Peterson said.

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One thing track coach Anthony Snead regrets is that he didn’t try hard enough in high school.

 

“I got C’s. I thought that was good enough. (My)GPA came down,” Snead said.

 

Despite some of his regrets, he said he doesn’t wish that he could go back and do things over.

 

“I hated high school,” he said.

 

Advice that he gives to seniors going out into the real world is to pursue their success and do everything they can to have no regrets at all.

 

“Start trying to grow up right now. When you get out of high school, they treat you like an adult,” Snead