In the past four years of my high school career, I’ve come to an inevitable conclusion: senior year is the most influential year of school anyone can have, for plenty of reasons. It brings a mix of feelings and experiences that can only truly be understood through time and living them.

To start, senior year is scary for most people, including myself. From a biological standpoint, it’s the first time many of us start worrying about living without our parents. For 18 years we’ve relied on them, and suddenly we have to start learning how to live without that support.

But senior year also brings many positives. It’s the end of one chapter, but it leads into the beginning of something much greater. Life outside of high school is something I have yet to experience, but it feels like the start of our real lives.

Another positive is the chance to have fun. After working and studying for 10 years, going through each grade, and attending three different schools, you finally get a year of freedom and enjoyment.

At the same time, senior year is sad because it feels like it goes by so fast. Speaking from personal experience, my time at Chapman has flown by in the blink of an eye, which is strange considering how much I’ve changed as a person. Still, that change is a positive, because Chapman has shaped me into someone better and given me the tools and resources to succeed beyond high school.

To any freshman, sophomore or junior reading this: even though everyone says it, believe it. Cherish every little moment of these four years — good or bad, stressful or not — because before you know it, you’ll already be a senior. Take that hard course, join a club, play a sport. Do something that leaves your mark. These years are not only for fun, but also for finding yourself.

Even if you don’t want to, try new things, because regret lasts longer than discomfort. Senior year is a time you can never get back. Even though mine has just begun, I already feel the dread of my last day, my last walk down the halls and those final goodbyes. Make every moment count. That’s why senior year is both the best and the hardest year of high school.