Endings provide the perfect opportunity to look back on how an experience has changed you. At the end of high school, I have realized every class we take has the chance to change our lives.

A choir piece might stick with you and come up in a humanities presentation years later, an anatomy lesson can connect to an English reading, math will apply in unexpected areas, and you will find countless coincidences across curricula.

Connections are what make school interesting, whether they’re correlating links between topics of study, personal ties that bring material closer to home, or bonds with best friends in classes. Feeling connected inspires us to do our best work, because we have something or someone to work for when we come to school.

In this building of mixed architecture, nine periods, countless classmates, hundreds of extracurriculars, and endless opportunities, there is so much to pay attention to.

In an imperfect balance of observation and participation, learning and being right, the overwhelming opportunities to connect overlapping ideas are not always noted, but rather experienced in the moment (and that is where the focus should be).

Whether we really notice or not, there will be assignments that relate to the big picture and teachers who change our perspectives and fun free periods spent with friends and things that bring smiles when we reflect on our four years. It all melts into a combination of crazy memories that change shape in retrospect.

Looking back on the montage of my high school highlights is eye opening and I notice all the connections that have been there all along. I’ve believed that the best experiences are new ones, because trying new things tends to lead to new skills, discoveries, and appreciation.

A retrospective realization in response is that my experiences, especially the new ones, have been formed by the moments leading up to them. It’s especially true with the people around me, all striving to learn and have a good time. With the thousands of individual and amazing minds present in this one building, incredible things can happen, as proven by past stories and victories.

We all get to be a part of some of those, and the stories we play a role in will stand out in our own montages as well as others’ as we move forward, full of these memories and experiences.