Eighth grade graduation comes, and I’m the only one. Many people get confused when I tell them I was the only student in my grade at my grade school. “How does that work?” “Were you in class alone all the time?” Or even the question I was asked once, “Was it a one room schoolhouse?” I explain how it worked and that, no, it was not a one room schoolhouse. It was a small Lutheran grade school in the village of Sussex, Wisconsin.

Eighteen students. That’s all. At an average of two students per grade, it was a pretty small school. There were six teachers in total which included choir, latin, and catechises teachers; therefore, there really were only three teachers. I stayed in one classroom with one teacher for most of the day and had many of my core classes with the seventh graders during my last year there. Even on my last day of school I told my teacher, “It’s like we’re just one big family, and I’m going to miss it here.” Little did I know how much different high school would be from this small school.

From one student to over five hundred students, I started my freshman year at a new high school. Even though I knew it was going to be different, and that it was a large school, I never really understood what that meant until I started going there. Coming from a small Lutheran school that isn’t even in the same school district as my new school, I knew no one. Luckily, I played tennis in the fall so I could get to know some people. Nonetheless, even to this day I still do not know everyone in my class, and I probably never will.

Going into highschool, it was completely different. The large building, the plethora of teachers, the amount of unfamiliar faces I saw everyday. Everything changed. I had no idea what I was doing most of the time. Even on the first day of school, I got lost going to one of the most unlikely classes: gym. However, I eventually began to figure it out.
Freshman year slowly dragged on, and I was getting more and more inclined to the large, campus-like school. I was gaining new friends and meeting new people everyday. I became accustomed to my teachers, the new way of teaching, the building, the people, and most everything new to me. I pushed through the drastic change and began to start working more and more on my academic career.

Even though I tried to meet new people and learn more about high school, my main focus always was on my grades and preparing myself for the future. The extreme change from grade school to high school may have been hard for me at first, yet I managed to make it through quite easily after a short while.

Throughout the rest of my years in high school, every time something changed--like a schedule, teacher leaving for a couple weeks, etc--no matter what the change was, I was able to easily go with it and work my way around it. Even though that adjustment I had to go through only a few years ago was hard at first, looking back at it, I realize now that it was one of the best things that has happened to me. Now I can go with the flow easily and efficiently, and if something changes, I am ready for that change. For any change.

Now my time comes, and it’s graduation day again; however, this time I’m not the only one. This time I’m going from five hundred some students to thousands of students. I am ready to make this next change. I know at first it may be once again hard and maybe even frightening. At the same time, however, I know I can make this change and better my future.