When people say that a certain event or decision “saved their life,” I’ve always looked at that as overdramatic. And yet here I am, back from my Blue & Gold hermithood, to tell all of you that full time Dual Enrollment saved my life.

I’m not here to preach about how much high school sucks. It does, of course, but you all know that. And who am I to think that my toxic learning environment was any worse than yours? In conclusion, high school sucks, and by the midpoint of my junior year, I was sick of it.

I was originally planning on part-time Dual Enrollment, just something to dip my toe into college and maybe to motivate me past my crippling senioritis. But pressure from my parents and peers drove me to this point. Yes, I haven’t had a traditional high school senior year, and no, I will never have the chance to again. But I have no regrets. I love college. I love my professors and friends, all of whom are excited to be here, something I never experienced in high school.

For clarification, I am at Georgia State University’s main campus in downtown Atlanta. As far as I know, I’m the only Chamblee student taking classes here. It’s a lot. Each morning, I leave my house an hour and a half before my first class starts to drive through Clairmont traffic to Chamblee MARTA, sit on a crowded train for half an hour, and finally walk to my first class of the day. But keep in mind, I’m still only leaving my house at 8:00.

So what’s the point of this article? Unlike most of my opinion pieces, I’m not writing to share my adoration of Christian Borle (the love of my life) or to complain about how much I play Papa’s Freezeria. Frankly, I don’t know why I’m writing this piece. Maybe to tell you (yes, YOU) to apply for Dual Enrollment. Maybe to flex on how I’m taking classes at Georgia State full time and have started writing for their student newspaper, The Signal (read my recent articles here.) Or maybe I’m just excited to share that for the first time in maybe six years, I feel genuine happiness and motivation most of the time. 

So that sounded emo. But I judge that most of high school is emo. High school is just a big cloud of anxiety and depression (and now I am actually preaching on how much high school sucks). We all know that. But what I didn’t know is that after three years of hating my life, that cloud would lift and I would feel human again. 

So maybe there is a point to this rambling article. (Congrats if you made it this far.) I want you all (staff excluded) to know that it will be okay. If I could give any advice to my annoying, overbearing high school self, it’s that high school isn’t forever. I got out, and I’m happy. And I hope that you all will be too. 

I’m confident that this isn’t my last Blue & Gold article. I know that once my college applications are in, I can find the time to write more narrative pieces for the Blue & Gold in addition to my stories for The Signal. But just in case this is it for my high school journalism, I want to say thank you. Thank you to my teachers for pushing me to study harder than I thought was possible. Thank you to my peers for guiding me through my seemingly complicated personal life. Thank you to Chamblee as a whole for giving me a home (if I were on house-arrest) as I navigated through my hopes and dreams.