At the beginning of the senior year, you will be appreciating and bragging about how it is your last year of school. Although it is your last, it can also become the most challenging of all of the previous years. Aside from schoolwork, you may be focusing on college decisions, scholarships, extracurriculars, and being leaders within your high school. While in you are in your senior year, it is imperative that you do not slack off, and you stay on the correct path towards success.

Many seniors may develop a disease known as senioritis. Senioritis is the disease that affects almost every senior, by making them become lazy and unwilling to complete certain tasks due to the mindset that senior year is their last year, and they do not need to try as much. I myself have become a victim of this disease as of lately, and it has greatly impacted me as a person. As I am wrapping up my senior year, I am much less inclined to do work that I am assigned, and I procrastinate on nearly anything. In this blog, I will be explaining certain ways to overcome, and or defeat senioritis, and how to be successful in your last and most important year in your high school career.

To begin, the first piece of advice I would give to everyone is to stay prepared. Being prepared would include: having a good night’s sleep, bringing the proper materials to class, and paying attention within that class. Secondly, I would say that organization is key during senior year. Make sure that you have a calendar to write down important dates so that you do not forget them. If you stay organized, you will more likely be less stressed, and be ready for whatever is coming at you next. Senior year can be overwhelming with college decisions and scholarships, so keep it organized. Lastly, I would recommend that you keep in mind how hard you have been working for the past three years when you decide to be lazy about something. How far you have come, your GPA, and how you represent yourself. Are you really going to let senioritis destroy your representation of yourself?? Don’t throw away all your hard work. You deserve so much more than what you give yourself credit for. Keep working hard, and in the end, you will achieve what you dearly desired.

There are many insights that one may have when it comes to vaccinating their very own children. Such as, how useful it it? How much will it cost? Are there any safety issues? Well, I am here to tell you why you SHOULD vaccinate your children, because it is in your best interest.

So what are vaccines anyways? As defined by Planned Parenthood, Vaccines are medications that prevent you from getting sick; and each vaccine provides protection from a different thing. Everyone needs vaccines, no matter how big or how tall, how young or how old. The most common vaccine would be a flu shot, which helps to prevent against the flu. Flu shots are administered yearly and decrease your chances of getting the flu by 40-60 percent. You can get your flu shot administered by a doctor, or even by your local pharmacy, and sometimes there are places that give out free flu shots.

There are many very good reasons as to why someone should want to keep their child vaccinated. For one, it can save their child’s life. Some previous diseases that have killed or severely injured thousands of children have now been cured due to these wonderful vaccines. One great example of this would be polio, which was once Americas most feared disease, but it goes by unnoticed due to the vaccines available. Secondly, Immunization will not only protect your children, but it can also lower the chances of you and your family getting sick as well. Third and finally, vaccination will save you lots of money in the long run. Some prolonged diseases can create a huge hit to your bank account due to the possibility of lost time at work combined with medical bills which aren’t cheap by the way.

To conclude, it is ultimately your decision whether or not you decide to vaccinate your child. But before you make a choice ask yourself this ” What is best for my child?”. If you answered with vaccination, you chose something that will not only save your child, but also your wallet and your mental stress. As seen above, vaccinations can prevent up to 332 million illnesses and avoid 732 thousand deaths. In the end, you will thank yourself for protecting your child and your family from illness by using vaccines.

We see many students tired when at school, having difficulty paying attention to the lecture, or even recalling what they just learned about. In so many cases, this is due to the lack of sleep they are getting. We see many students get by on four hours of sleep or less and brag about their strength and endurance, but truth is, there are many health concerns if one day you decide to pull an all-nighter.

Sleep deprivation is a serious issue for many adolescents, affecting emotional and behavioral functioning, learning, and development. Without sleep, there can be no healthy brain development or promote the well-being of the student.  So why do we need more than eight hours of sleep? Well, sleep is an important function for so many reasons. Your brain signals your body to release Melatonin, a sleep hormone and compounds to decrease risk for health conditions, manager hunger levels, maintain your immune system, and retain memory. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that adolescents get eight to 10 hours of sleep each night. It helps the brain strengthen the neural pathways that cement the learning that took place that day.  

To add on, you would think that being sleep-deprived, you would not be worried about being hungry and grabbing a snack. That is the total opposite. Poor sleep habits can increase the body’s energy needs. When asleep at night, movement and the need for calories is reduced. But when you are sleep-deprived, your brain will release chemicals to signal hunger. This will lead to eating more, exercising less, and gaining weight. There was a 2014 study that showed that students who slept less, had an increased risk for obesity and high BMI.

So how can we solve this problem? Three ways: parents should set boundaries around screen time, teachers should work together to assign manageable homework loads, and school start times can be pushed back. Only together we can help improve the amount of sleep time students actually get. By allowing later start dates, we can help to improve the classwork of students and the effort they put in.

On occasion, nearly everyone wants to snack out, or eat many unhealthy foods at once, but the true question is how much are we benefiting? Eating snacks and unhealthy food may stop your cravings and urges, but are they worth it? Its important that when you choose to snack, you choose a healthy but yet appealing option for yourself.

Eating a healthy and balanced diet is essential to the human body, for one, it helps maintain a healthy weight. Being overweight can cause diabetes, certain cancers, heart diseases, and even strokes. Fresh healthy food often provides fibers and nutrients that help your body function day to day. Junk food is often consisted of food that is rich in calories, fat, sugar and salt, which is no question as to why it is the favorite of most. Many junk foods can cause high blood pressure as well as high cholesterol levels, which can have huge impacts later in life.

Did you know that the natural energy from just one apple is more effective than most energy drinks? Many people find this fact very intriguing, but sugar and caffeine is not always the answer when it comes to gaining energy. Many people will get crashes often after consuming energy drinks, but if you decide to have an apple instead, it will likely turn out that you will gain more energy and not experience crashes throughout the day.

In the end, I am not trying to be a food Nazi, and I am not healthy at every turn, but I am trying to convince some people that instead of eating a cookie, if they eat a healthier alternative such as a banana, it will turn out better for them in the long run. Statistics show that nearly 160 million people within America are either obese, or overweight ( Healthdata.org). By limiting the amount of snacking we do within one day a week, we can help prolong our lives, and also decrease certain health risks that can occur.

Almost everyone in high school has something to do. Whether it is band, ROTC, sports, a job, NHS, or even being involved within an activity. One question many people ask themselves is are we doing too much? My answer to that question is no, and I will explain below.

Imagine coming home from school and having no responsibilities. You have no chores, and you don’t have to do anything unless you want to do it. Well obviously, if you have nothing to do, you will choose to do something probably non productive, such as sleep, play video games, or just sit around. If you really think about it, in real life we cannot just sit around and accomplish nothing, otherwise we will starve and end up on the streets.

So to answer the question, my answer is no, you can never do too much. If we start being productive and have many responsibilities, we will be ready for life. Think of this scenario, if we did not have high school and we sent children straight to college, would they succeed? The obvious answer would be no, because we would have no previous knowledge of learning. So think about this, if we do not do anything, are we preparing ourselves for real life without the aid from our family? I think not. By being involved and having responsibilities, it helps train us for the future. By having jobs, or being involved within sports, we meet certain expectations and standards that are set into place. In sports, if you do not try your best, you will not start at the sport you play, in a job, if you do not accomplish the tasks that are assigned to you, you will not keep your job.

In the long run, you will appreciate your involvement in high school, because eventually you will look back on your high school days, or the days that made you who you are. The amount of effort that you gave in high school, and the tasks and responsibilities that you had will pave the path for your future. As you look when you become older, you will ask yourself ” What did I do in high school?” and your answer should provide some sort of answer that shows that you had responsibilities. These reasons provided help support that responsibilities in high school are very influential within a persons life, and they help build a person up and prepare them for a life that will have many obstacles that need to be passed.

Hello, my name is Aaron,
I am currently a high school senior in my last trimester. I work a part time job at Hy-Vee. I currently am taking four college classes and by the time I graduate, I will have around 50 transferable college credits. I plan to attend the University of Iowa in the fall and study business administration.I keep myself busy by managing my time wisely. I usually work four to five days a week and try and complete my homework on the days that I am not working. I am very interested in cars, I own a 1989 Iroc camaro, which is my pride and joy. I am a huge football fanatic, and my favorite football team is the Kansas City Chiefs.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton