10 Important Things To Do Senior Year of High School

Looking for things you should do your senior year of high school? Here are some things every high school senior should do before graduating.

Senior year can be a roller coaster. It is one of the best times of your life, but it can also be really stressful. Finding ways to enjoy yourself throughout all of the up and downs, “first lasts”, and all of the bittersweet moments throughout senior year is essential. This list of things to do senior year will help you do just that.

My senior year of high school of high school was such a whirlwind. Between varsity sports, college applications, and all of the responsibility that can come with senior year, I found myself having a hard time enjoying my last year of high school.

However, it is so important to try to enjoy your time as a senior in high school. Here is some advice for senior year of high school that will help you appreciate and do your best your final year despite all of the chaos.

After reading this post, you’ll have a great idea of things to do your senior year of high school, and you’ll be ready to take on the year with a fresh outlook!

This post is all about things to do your senior year of high school.

The Best Tips For Senior Year of High School

1. Stay Motivated

It is no secret that senioritis is almost impossible not to catch. It has a way of catching you off guard and making you lazy in the time that you need to be the most productive! In the excitement to get out of high school, it’s easy to forget that your GPA follows you when you leave.

It seems redundant to keep trying in your high school classes when you have already been accepted into a college, but I promise, it is not! Keeping your GPA up can lead to more opportunities to get scholarships (free money!!) and other opportunities senior year.

Hang in there and keep doing your best in classes, it pays off!

Related Post: What To Do The Summer Before College

2. Spend Time with Friends

In the town I went to elementary, middle, and high school in, I’d been seeing the same faces for 12 years, and I got pretty used to seeing everyone all the time. Because of this, I sometimes took seeing my friends (or even my acquaintances) all the time for granted.

Being in high school for 3 years makes it seem like you’re never going to be away from all of these people, but pretty soon, you are.

It’s important to spend time with your high school friends while you still can, because pretty soon you’re all going off to different places and will be living different lives. Seeing each other is going to be a rarity once you graduate, so make sure you make the most of the time you have with them.

3. Get to Know People Better

This is something that didn’t hit me until senior year. There were some really cool people in my class who I talked to, but I did not know very well. However, once I got to talking to them, they had some awesome stories to tell about their lives!

So here is my advice to you: get to know people outside of your friend group.

Cliques are kind of inevitable in high school, but you don’t have to limit yourself to only talking to people you’re comfortable with! Go outside of your bubble and talk to people you’ve never talked to before. Maybe you’ll realize that the “weird kid” has the same favorite book as you. Maybe you’ll realize you and the preppy girl are both really interested in art. I really, really encourage this. It is eye opening.

4. Spend Time with Family

You might be going 10 minutes away to college, or maybe you’re going 14 hours away. Maybe you’re not even be going to college. No matter the circumstance, spending time with your family before graduating high school is important.

Your senior year is really the last bit of time you get to be dependent on someone else, because after this, you’ll probably be out in the real world. If you’re leaving home, you’ll be doing your own laundry and buying your own groceries.

It can be easy to take family time for granted when you’re so used to being around them all the time. However, things will likely be different after you graduate high school and possibly go off to college.

You’ll probably miss the way things were at home when you were in high school (I know I do), so be sure to try to appreciate family time.

5. Take Pictures and Videos

Like I’ve said in all of the points before this, life isn’t going to be the same after graduation. You aren’t going to be able to see all of the same people all the time. Taking pictures is one of the best ways to save memories! Later on in life, you’ll appreciate having pictures of you with your high school friends.

Senior year is a year to remember, and taking pictures and videos is the best way to do that. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I like to go through my camera roll and find myself smiling at memories that the pictures have stored. Document this time of your life!

6. Keep a Journal

This goes along with documenting your life. It is so fun to go back and read what I was thinking and doing at certain points in my life.

Journaling not only serves as a form of therapy, but it is another way to store memories. I like to think of it as a book about my life. Someday you might be interested in seeing what was going on in your head when you were an 18 year old.

A great way to document memories is with a memory journal. It has space for 5 years, and you write one line a day. I got one my freshman year of college and it is so fun to go back and see what I was doing each year. If you start senior year of high school, you can use it all throughout college or the next 4 years as well!

7. Find ways to de-stress

The beginning of senior year hit me like a brick wall. I was totally unprepared for all the responsibility that being a senior consists of. I got overwhelmed with stress and anxiety, and it honestly made my first semester kind of miserable.

Don’t make the same mistake as me! There are so many ways to handle stress, but just finding ways to alleviate it made my life so much easier. I really, really encourage you to find things that you enjoy doing to balance out the homework, scholarships, and responsibilities.

Related: How to Relieve Anxiety

8. Practice Good Time Management

I had no idea how to manage my time until my senior year of high school. I can honestly say that this directly contributed to my stress at the beginning of the year. During senior year you’re juggling so many different thing that it can be hard to prioritize what is important.

I was taking college classes my senior year of high school and really had to learn how to manage my time well. I started practicing good time management by setting certain times to do homework everyday so that I wouldn’t procrastinate and have to spend 12 hours in one day to finish an assignment.

For example, I would get home from school at 1:50 and do homework until 4, then the rest of the evening I would.

This might seem a little extra if you don’t have that much homework, but find the times that are right for you and stick with it!

9. Appreciate the Food

When I left home and went off to college, I missed my grandma’s cooking immensely. Home cooked meals definitely beat the ramen noodles and microwave dinners that I ate when I moved into the dorms.

What I’m really trying to say here is, enjoy the home cooked meals while they last. If there is one thing that you’re going to miss more than your family, it is their food.

10. Enjoy Yourself

Like I said earlier in this post, senior year is full of ups and downs. However, the high points of heavily outweigh the low points. Have fun (but be smart), and enjoy every bit of it. You’re only a senior in high school once!

10 Important Things To Do Senior Year of High School