10. Think back to September of your freshman year. What was it like starting high school? What were your hopes and/or concerns? Is high school what you expected it would be? What advice would you give someone like Charlie from The Perks of Being a Wallflower?

Thinking back to freshman year as the content sophomore I am now is quite funny to relive. September of last year I was a scared freshman entering what seemed to be a vast, daunting place called high school. My first day at Ramapo seemed to be a major steppingstone in my life. Transitioning from middle school to high is definitely a major step in ones life, but should not be a scary, stressful process. I remember starting to think in the weeks before high school about so many things: who would be in my classes, who would I sit with during lunch, how would I make new friends. Of course the school was much larger than the middle school that I attended and I was so afraid of getting lost. I even questioned how the teachers taught. I thought about these questions frequently, stressing myself almost everyday. All I wanted was to know what I was doing so that I would not seem like a confused freshman that doesn’t belong. The last thing I wanted was to feel like I didn’t belong.

Sometimes it felt like I was the only one worrying about all these things, and that everyone else already had their place. Looking back now, I know for a fact that a majority of the kids in my grade were scared just the same: everyone hopes to excel and succeed in high school, and we all want the same outcome, to have a good experience, get good grades, have a good social life, and be the person that everyone knows and likes. The one thing I learned from freshman year is that the only way to have fun in high school is to just be yourself. Don’t be afraid of what others will think because deep down everyone will look up to you. Everyone loves anyone who isn’t afraid of what others think, and just goes about their life, as they want because pretending to be someone you are not will lead to a bad high school experience. Living every day, trying to impress other people by being someone you are not, can be very tiring. This can cause someone to go down the wrong path and end up having a hard time in high school.

This advice is especially relevant to the main character, Charlie, in the book, The Perks of Being a Wallflower. Charlie is a very quite boy, who keeps all his emotions built up inside of him. Charlie has also been through a lot as a child, such as the death of his best friend and his Aunt Helen. These traumatic events impacted Charlie’s life in a very negative way, causing him to become depressed and to need medication and therapy. When Charlie goes to high school, he will want to fit in making sure he is not noticed or stands out to any one. He just wants to get through high school, without any misfortune. I think it is very important that Charlie finds true friends, knowing his condition and his past life experiences. Having true friends makes high school a lot easier to handle because you will always have someone by your side to help you through the difficult times.  If Charlie had friends, he would never feel alone, causing him to become less upset. The kinds of friends Charlie needs are real true friends; people who are themselves and not phony. The only way real people will befriend Charlie is if they see that he is his own person and not someone who does not only care about fitting in.

If Charlie follows the advice of being his own person and of not caring so much about what others think, he will gain true friends and have a good high school experience.