The one thing I took out of my experience in my four years of high school is the many virtues it taught me. My school has taught me to be charitable, patient, chivalrous, responsible with my time and homework, more disciplined in my everyday life and more prudent. It has given me more strength in my faith, and humility in my words and actions.

Discipline plays a huge factor in everyone’s daily life, and my school has taught me this through the everyday early mornings, the very strict uniform policy, and the homework that is assigned to us. It allows me to start my day off early with prayer, and it’s the same schedule every day, which is an ideal day in my life.

I work at Chick-fil-A throughout the week, and due to that I have to be more responsible with everything in my life. Especially homework. Instead of horsing around before work, I’ve trained myself to be hard at work in my studies, so that after work I’m not up late, and having a tired day the next day.

Another aspect of my life this school has helped me with is my leadership abilities. As a senior, it is my job to go above and beyond for my school, to be the school spirit and spread it to others. And to keep all others below me out of trouble and lead them towards the greatest good, which is God.

It’s hard sometimes to be the good guy, because they only see you as the bad guy, but a talking to needs to be done sometimes. My principal, Mr. Justin Fout, plays a huge role in this. I went through a period in the beginning of my senior year where the leadership part of my life was falling away, but I was given a stern talking to, which built me back up.

The leadership part of my life coincides with charity because it calls me out of myself to be the best I can be for everyone below me — to show them a good example.

It has also taught me patience in my life. The amount of homework that is given almost every night seems almost like the teachers hate us — it is only to help us better our lives in so many virtues. Even when I’m mad or upset about the amount of homework given to us, I still thank them while I’m doing it, because I’m using it to grow in virtue, which I know is the reason.

To be honest, this school is the best thing that could have happened to me in this stage of my life. My parents used to say that I’m going to appreciate this when I’m older, and I never really understood that until my senior year.

This school is what makes me who I am today, and I can’t be more grateful for that.