The freshmen this year are cute. They are petty, they argue about things that don’t matter, their priorities are wrong, and I love them. It’s hard to imagine that only three years ago I was in their place, and now I am a senior of Centennial High School. What’s even stranger to me is the attitude towards freshmen by my fellow seniors; they hate freshmen for some reason. Despite that, I remain an exception.

I remember my freshman year quite fondly. I was in the marketing class when Mr. Nesbitt still taught at Centennial, before he moved to another school to teach. I remember being the only freshman student who was in the class for the whole year.

Marketing 1-2 was actually almost entirely seniors and juniors, so I really was sort of an outcast; or so I should have been. Instead, they were very welcoming to me and treated me like another student at Centennial. They would even bring me food! Alas, they all graduated and I took their place.

Right now I’m taking an AP class that is mostly attended by freshmen. They all remind me so much of when I was them, and it makes me feel excited knowing that some of these kids are going to take my place when I graduate Centennial. They’re so energetic, and they have personalities that I can only dream of. One freshman has ambitions to enter the computer science world; he’s egotistical in a rather charming way. It’s obvious that he really know his stuff, and I’m curious to see if I’ll be using any of his inventions in the future.

Another freshman is really determined to go to Cambridge for her university education to become a prosecutor if my recall is correct. I have a feeling that my mentor would like her. I suspect he would say that she is talent wasted because her journalism skills are quite outstanding. This is only a sample of the freshmen I have met this year and I’m disappointed not because of these student’s qualities, but instead, by the lack of quantity of freshmen this year; I simply can’t get enough of them!

I only wish seniors and some teachers had the same sense of optimism for freshmen. “I hate freshman” seems to be the most common thing I hear among seniors, while “I wish I could only teach seniors instead of freshman” is the most common thing I hear from teachers. I can’t help but think about how my high school life would have been if the seniors kept on telling me about how much they hated me. After all, freshmen are the future and it is not productive to hate them for who they are, especially when us seniors were them three years ago.

I love freshmen and it pains me in a way to see how they are treated in comparison to us upperclassmen. I owe it to the seniors and juniors in my marketing class who treated me like an equal to treat the freshmen this year like my equals. If it weren’t for those seniors, I would never think about extending the favor towards freshmen.

I wish we treated freshmen like all other students. For example, I used to love coming to the assemblies, but the dancers or the cheerleaders are never directed at the freshmen, which is why I can hardly stomach going to the assemblies. I wish us seniors would take the freshmen’s place in the gym so that us seniors would get better seats, and the freshman wouldn’t be forced to stand out.

If there are any freshmen who are reading this, please know that I don’t look down on you. I want to help freshmen any way I can, so I must insist on this. If you have any questions about high school or Centennial, please ask me and I will answer to the best of my ability.

Please let me help you because the seniors before me treated me so well; therefore, it is an honor to extend their treatment to me onto the current freshmen. Ultimately, I care about freshmen, so if any of you ever need help about school, just ask.