Surviving High School Essay, Research Paper

High School Survival.

Peer pressure? Is it true I will always come home with a blue eye if I won?t obey juniors and seniors? Is it grades, popularity, drugs, or maybe sex I should worry about the most? I heard I will never survive college if I remain to be a virgin throughout my high school years, and I will never be safe in school if I won?t try cigarettes and beer. What will my friends think of me if all I worry about is getting into a descent college?

Funny how some students think isn?t it? But they don?t know that the best part about high school is that whatever you do, you will be respected for it in one or the other way. Being a cheerleader or a captain of a football team doesn?t always make you the most popular kid in school. You don?t have to be a natural athlete to be accepted in your high school. Believe it or not, but the most popular and the most friendly students are those with straight A?s and scientific discoveries performed in their basements- that?s right, the nerds! Even a captain of a football team or the most popular and beautiful cheerleader in school will almost always come and ask the nerd for help with his or her homework. They will never get hurt or beaten up because they are too valuable for those that are not so much academically talented.

If you think you won?t do so well in high school because you?re one of those ?weird minorities?- you know; purple hair, pierced nose and eyebrows, and jeans twice as wide as your waist- you?re wrong. There are so many cliques in high school that even if you are a green, four-foot creature from Europa, you will always find a group that will suit you, and you will suit them.

How about that three letter word that makes everyone so uncomfortable? Ahh sex, that?s right. This is just one of the high school myths that is becoming more false than true. This one is all up to the student. Although what they say about being unsuccessful without it in college is not true. In fact loosing virginity might have a bad impact on your character and self-reliance. I know many people who decided to follow the myth, and now, they wish they could go back into their freshman year and start over.

High school is truly the only place where Darwin?s survival of the fittest does not quite work as well as in nature. The reason for that is because there is no specific traits a person must undergo in order to be favored and thus ?survive.? No matter who you are, how you act, how you eat, sleep, walk, or talk; you will fit in. True, sometimes if you?re a freshman coming in for your first year, some big shot senior might make you be his or her slave for a short while. But that doesn?t last long, and later it even ends up being a good thing. You might get to know them a little and who knows, maybe later they will help you get rid of an annoying bully from another school.

If you think you will be picked on in high school because of your ?small size,? you are most likely an eighth grader about to become a high school freshman. Just wait until your first year starts and then you will laugh at yourself thinking the size was actually part of the matter. During the vacation time between eighth and ninth grade many grow so much that they can?t recognize themselves from previous pictures. Besides, many short individuals are quite aggressive and do not need to worry about high school. Size is just as ludicrous predicament as someone?s stealthy character.

There are many ways of being successful in high school. Being a nerd does not mean you will never be popular, and doing what others are does not mean you also have to do them. All it means is that those people are a bit different than you are. Remember, the trick to surviving those four years is being who you are, not who you think others want you to be.