Through out my high school experience I encountered many different types of situations, some enforcing the point that high school should be abolished and some preaching the excellence of secondary education.  There are several parts of the stereotypical American high school that I just never had to deal with.  I never had a personal encounter with the typical high school cliques. I saw the jocks, the rich girls, the theatre kids, the band kids, the metallica fans, the nerds, the smelly kids, but I just observed these groups.  I got along with most people and could pretty much get along with kids from any group, but I did see my friends run into problems.  I saw them think they were making new friends and they wanted to be a part that group, so they changed their hair, their clothes, and in some cases completely disassociate themselves with their old group of friends.  And ninety percent of the time their so called new group of friends ended up using them for one reason or another.  The social aspect of high school is sometimes more important then the educational aspect.  Kids can be so fragile in high school and if they get caught up with the wrong group of people it can affect the rest of their lives.  Now I grew up in cow country so none of my friends joined gangs, but I did see kids I have known since kindergarten turn to drugs, alcohol, or crime.  I’ve had friends kicked out of school, arrested, or kicked out of their house, and I know that it’s the people they chose to hang out with that got them into those situations.  Now I realize that I’ve only talked about the some of the bad things that can happen to a high school student, but for every negative there are twice as many positives.  High school is a once in a lifetime opportunity.  You experience painting your face orange and black for the rival basketball game, tailgating before football games, going to prom, representing your school by playing a sport, your first real romance, and form friendships that will last a lifetime.  Of course there will be kids who fall by the wayside and hate every second of high school, but the majority of students (me included) have a blast in high school. 

            Now it’s time to discuss the side of high school no one really enjoys, academics!  Most of the things you learn are so unimportant that most of what you learn you’ll either forget ten years from now or you will become the world’s greatest fountain of useless knowledge.  High school is basically four years of stressful preparation for your general education classes in college.  The typical high school schedule usually consists of a watered down history class, a fairly generic English class, earth science (also known as rock 101), completely useless advanced algebra, art, and then possibly the biggest waist of time god ever created, gym. There is one conclusion I can safely reach, for all the times I’ve been told that this will make college easier for me my time here better be a breeze.