Like it’s quoted in Brad Paisley’s “Last Time For Everything,” there is simply a last time for everything. There’s a last time to be eight years old and ride your bikes around the neighborhood looking for trouble, and there’s one last time to enjoy high school.

            That last time is: your senior year of high school.

            Senior year is one of the most important, in a matter of fact, the most important year of one’s whole high school experience. One has to start applying to colleges, take and get high scores on the SAT, or ACT, and simply enjoy the last few months of high school they have.

            So how does someone prepare, or adjust themselves for the stressful senior year before they enter the real world?

            Take it from someone people who know and that are now in their senior year.

            Current Clovis High senior Britney Beiter is not really having the senior year she has hoped to have so far.

            Beiter was sick for the first three of the five weeks of school and is currently working night shifts at the Sequoia Sandwich Company. She is trying to make up the work from the time she missed, and balance having a job and school.

            “So far it’s been a struggle, to say the least,” said Beiter. “I’ve hardly been to any football games this year, and the one I go to [my good friend] gets injured. On top of that I’m still in the midst of trying to make up all the work I missed over the few weeks I had whooping cough; so ya, not fun. There’s not much preparing I could’ve done”

            Beiter hopes to attend the last five football games of the year and attend other events with her friends. Shes also “praying” she passes her Advanced Placement (AP) Biology and her English 1A classes.

            Three-sport varsity Clovis High senior Kelly Crouch is also struggling with her senior year taking 3 AP class, (AP Government, AP Biology, AP Calculus) and playing her sports (tennis, soccer, and badminton).

            “This year so far has been… rough,” said Crouch. “I have hardly been able to hang out with my friends because of all my AP classes and it sucks. I love my friends and it’s low-key depressing when I can’t hang out with them. No way I could’ve prepared for this”

            Crouch was able to understand the position she was in, realizing that she was doing this to look good for colleges, especially UC Davis where her older sister, Cassidy, attends. Crouch plans to be a veterinarian when she graduates high school.

            But for former Clovis High senior Kennedy Domm and Joe Jackson had different experiences.

            They both explained how much they enjoyed their senior years and how much fun it was. They both explained how they heard the seniors ahead of them explain how stressful it was, but they didn’t feel it. Of course they both “basically gave up” and just went through the year.

            For both Crouch and Beiter on the other hand, they understand the stress and the pressure, and they are accepting to it.

            They both know the importance of the stress and that it’s something they couldn’t prepare for it. But they both know it’s worth going through for a successful future. That’s what’s the most important to them.

            “I’m glad I wasn’t prepared,” said Beiter. “You can’t prepare for the real world. You can’t prepare to get sick and having to overcome the adversity you’re going to have to face. So I’m glad there’s stress because that’s going to be the real world–stressful.”

D-I rankings and #TRAC standings after Week 4. pic.twitter.com/7B7vPrSf8B

— Clovis Football (@ClovisFootball) September 27, 2017

Twitter: @PaytonMayer| Read all of his articles HERE.