Senior Cota Barmore lights up when sharing her new goals for this year. Thinking about her future life creates a new sense of motivation and appreciation for all there is to come and all she has done. 

Closing off their last year of high school, seniors have a lot of tasks to accomplish. Some of those tasks are college applications, scholarships, and mapping out their future. Additionally, senior year provides an outlook into personal goals that don’t necessarily involve school.

“My goal is to not take life so seriously and surround myself with good people because that always makes me feel happier,” Barmore said.

Having an unclear perspective on how one’s future after high school might end up can cause some feelings of uncertainty and stress. Now that Barmore has already committed to Colorado School of Mines to play softball, she has a new view on how she wants to finish her senior year. 

“Have fun, you know, I feel like I’ve been so stressed about school and sports that I just haven’t taken the time to enjoy my classes or enjoy playing sports,” Barmore said. “So I think this year, I just really want to have fun and just play sports to play sports and take classes to expand my knowledge and not to look good for colleges.”

Goals for this year can easily be translated to goals for the future as well. Senior Rya Bubser connects her main goal for this year directly to the career she wants to pursue. 

“I want to improve my communication with people,” Bubser said. “Like if I’m going to miss something on a day, I need to communicate it now rather than later. I want to be a teacher, so I need communication.”

Responsibilities from freshman year to senior year are very different. More responsibility may cause students to have a different attitude towards the world and a higher level of maturity than previously. 

“Freshman year, I wanted to be a psychologist and be a trophy wife,” Bubser said. “Now that I’m older, I don’t want to be a trophy wife and I want to do things for myself. I’m independent.”

Many freshmen may feel uncertain about their future and overwhelmed with the new high school environment they’re in this year. Barmore shares how freshmen should really go about the start of their high school career.

“Pick a goal that’ll help them in the future and if you don’t know what you want your goals to be, just try everything,” Barmore said.