I Am a High School Graduate

Yes, it's true! I have completed all due work, gone through the rounds, tripley-checked everything, and I am officially a high school graduate! Isn't that exciting? Well let's take a look-see...

Right now, I'm incredibly happy to be done with it all. All those nasty required classes that I hated so dearly, all that time spent doing lovely busy work that got my brain absolutely nowhere other than boredom, and those repetitive English classes that told me the same exact things for 4 years in a row. It feels great to be done with all of that, and although I'm sure it's done plenty to mold and shape me for the future, I'm glad to be finished.

The weird thing is, that's ALL I'm glad about (and getting to go to college, of course). When you graduate from high school, you get lots of congratulations cand you did it's and that sort of thing, and I can't help but think to myself, "What's the big deal? I only graduated from high school! I haven't made it through college, or grad school, or started a career of any kind yet. Aren't those the things that really matter?" Originally when I started thinking like this, I recognized the fact that there are people who don't manage through high school, but I didn't know the facts. So I checked: in my school district, 92% of students get a regular, 4-year high school diploma. In my state, 75% do the same. In the country, only 70% of students graduate from high school, and in some places the graduation rate is only 52% (check my facts here). The lowest graduation rates are found among Hispanics and African Americans.

Looking at these facts, I feel good about where I stand, and I'm happy about my school district and its good education. Thinking about this, I had it pretty easy, and there's no way I can sit here and say that these people who aren't graduating are stupid or that I'm smarter than them or more successful because I graduated high school and they didn't. I did an online program all through high school, and I saw some of what other students had to go through to get their degrees. There were single teen parents, kids who lived on their own, students with disabilities or handicaps. Maybe they were in those situations based on their mistakes, but I'm sure a lot of them were not, or at least regretted that one bad choice they made if that was the case. No matter what the case was, they all worked through to the end and got the diploma anyway, and for that I respect them.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm thankful for the situation I was put into. I had, for the most part, very good and respectable teachers who wanted the best for me, and I appreciate that. I had supporting friends and family, and I didn't have an overload of unwanted responsibilities outside of school that bogged me down or kept me from working. For this reason, I think the real congratulations should go to all those who did have to deal with those things, and made it through anyway. I just did what I was supposed to do. They went above and beyond.

-Phil