We’re all in this together, right? Not necessarily. There have been many expectations put on incoming freshmen about what high school is really like through the media, TV shows and movies, but are these expectations true?

After the first few weeks of high school, freshmen may come to realize that this experience is nothing like what the movies have told them. There are no prissy girls strutting around with dogs in their purses, no nerds with pants pulled over their belly buttons and clearly no spontaneous dance numbers.

High school is a time to grow and change, to experience things and learn from mistakes. It is not about having a life that is wild and fun; it is about being able to see the beauty in the boring moments or the chill moments. It is not always a party. It is actually a lot of work. There is some type of stigma that once you become a junior or senior, or even a sophomore, your life is going to be about friends, friends and more friends. You will be going out every weekend, living it up and having a blast. What people soon realize is that high school is stressful. There are things to do like prepare for college and meet expectations.

On top of that, we are not all going to get the fairy tale ending we think we’ll get. We may not get into the college of our dreams or end up staying with the boy we’ve been with for the past few years. However, we will all have something worth more than that fairy tale ending. We will have all the memories we made and the friendships that we have created that will change us and affect us for the rest of our lives.

Once high school starts, reality sets in. We see it will never be like the movies, but we learn to love it anyway.