Just like that, after four fast years, high school is over and I’m getting ready for the next chapter of my life. I’m feeling relaxed now since I have plans for the summer and will be getting ready to move into UTSA in August. I’m also wrapping up my final exams and projects, but it was a long road to get to where I am, especially during this year.

When I first heard about Covid, I was making jokes about Corona and not really thinking about it. That was until everything shut down, including school. Everybody has had to work extra hard this year to compensate for learning in a virtual environment, especially teachers who have had to be incredibly flexible with the constantly changing world we’ve been living in for over a year.

I attended school 100% remote this year. School has been fairly easy for me this year as I complete my assignments and tests on time. However, there were moments when I really stressed about college. It’s a lot of hard work to research colleges, write essays, prepare for college tests and wait to hear back from the colleges you apply to. Initially, I never thought I’d end up going to UTSA because I assumed it was a small school and I wasn’t really interested. My top choices were UT Austin, A&M and LSU. I wasn’t too disappointed when I was capped from UT because I’m not in the top 10% and my test scores aren’t excellent. However, I was pretty disappointed when I didn’t receive direct admission into A&M because I thought my grades, test scores and application were strong enough. I was also told that I’d probably get into A&M since I was admitted to UT Dallas, which made me get my hopes up. Finally, I was admitted to LSU and I was excited because I believed they had everything I wanted; a large school with top-ranked programs, sports and a beautiful campus. However, I didn’t get much from them in terms of financial aid; since it’s out of state, it would be much more expensive. I had applied to UTSA in November and was admitted, so my parents and I toured the campus. To my surprise, UTSA had the nicest and newest campus of any of the other colleges I visited. When I did more research, I discovered UTSA has a student population of over 30,000, is a top-five business school in Texas (majoring in finance) and has D1 football and basketball teams. I have a friend that’s going there too, so I’m excited. I’m not sure if I’ll attend UTSA for four years or transfer somewhere else after a year or two, but I’m happy to have a plan and am ready for my future.

Some teachers I’d like to shout out: Mrs. Stiles for helping us push through the complications this year and always being there when I needed help outside of class, Mr. Dennis for always expecting the best, college-level work from me, Profe Walsh for making Spanish IV interesting in a virtual learning environment, Mr. Reeves for encouraging me to join newspaper instead of journalism, Mr. Flick for helping me to take my writing skills from high school to college level, Profe Tagle for being a fun teacher and sponsoring ultimate frisbee, Profe Mendoza for pushing me to do my best work while also being able to talk about college football, Mrs. Davis for always working hard to make our lessons interactive and engaging and Mrs. Maney for having a fun class and teaching practical life knowledge.

Well, this is goodbye. Through all the good, bad, ugly, late night study sessions, the excitement and relief when I got a good grade and the disappointment when I didn’t, Bowie has truly prepared me for college. With more people getting vaccinated every day and mask mandates loosening, we are coming out of the storm stronger than ever. That’s it for today, I hope that my fellow seniors have a great graduation and a super summer (in the words of Mr. Robinson). ?❤️