Recapping Junior Year of High School

Over the weekend, I did a poll on my Instagram stories asking y’all if you’d be interested in seeing a junior year recap and I got an overwhelming response saying YES! Therefore, today I’m sitting down to share with you the highs, lows, and everything in between of my favorite year of high school so far. 

I’m not going to lie, I went back and looked at a lot of Weekly Wrap Ups while writing this post to get the full reminiscing effect from week to week. I remember being so happy throughout specific time periods but it’s a wonderful feeling to have it all documented so I can go back and remember the source of all those smiles. 

I was so so busy this year—let me give y’all the gist. My schedule was as follows:

– AP World History
– AP English Language
– AP Art History
– Honors Forensic Science
– Honors Journalism 2
– Pre-Calculus
– Honors Health.

I was a Varsity Cheerleader, Varsity Baseball Manager, Fashion Club Vice President, Opinions Editor of the Newspaper, Student Ambassador and belonged to the Leo’s Club and Drama Club. As you can tell I have a hard time saying no when someone asks me to help out; however, I feel SO fortunate to be involved across the board at my high school. I’ll do a rundown on how to manage school and extracurriculars + a junior year advice during my back to school series, but I still wanted you to get a feel for what I was involved in and my course load.

first day of junior year

The school year began and I wasn’t overly excited. Sophomore year wasn’t my favorite, I wasn’t totally loving cheer, and honestly, I didn’t have many good friends. However, I knew that the year was supposed to be ‘rough’ so I wanted to have the slightest bit of a positive outlook to make the year a bit more bearable. My course load was vigorous and I was planning on getting involved in a lot more in order to boost those college applications.

Throughout the fall, my time was completely occupied by cheer. Cheerleading is a big deal at my school and very serious, therefore we practice nearly 20 hours a week with football games on Friday, and 1–2 games for various other fall sports. The season calls for a lot of late nights, sweaty clothes, and time management skills. However, this year was different from the last. It felt different. There was something to look forward to, people I really enjoyed, and a sport that suddenly seemed like what it used to be.

Not to mention our school is a HUGE football school and working towards a three-peat State Championship title was the talk of the town. It’s hard to complain when you are winning every week… We spent hours working on banners, making signs to decorate the houses and the locker room, and spent our Fridays simply enjoying one another’s presence. It really is the most wonderful time of the year. I cannot explain the overwhelming feeling of home that I feel on a Friday night. The season flew by and suddenly we found ourselves cheering on the boys as they brought home the third straight State Championship title. Not many can say they’ve never seen a losing football game throughout their high school career.

In the midst of all the football excitement, us cheerleaders were feeling our own sort of excitement. This was the first year Cheerleading was recognized as a sport in our county meaning, if we qualified, we were able to advance to State Semi-Finals and States. We ended up winning counties and State Semi-Finals our first year eligible to compete. It was the most amazing feeling; it was as if all my years had paid off in one three-minute performance. States came and there were posters around town, on our doorsteps, throughout the school as everyone was excited for us. It was an incredible experience and we ended up taking third place.

Homecoming week was somewhere in the midst of all this and it was a blast dressing up every day, participating in the fun activities, and attending the dance, which was surprisingly very good.

Though every free minute was occupied throughout this busy time, I managed to keep my grades up and for the first time, really, really enjoyed school. The days felt fast and I genuinely liked my classes so learning came easy. I maintained the same GPA as the previous year and it only got better as the year progressed—I finished with all A’s and one B (Pre-Calculus and I just aren’t meant to be).

I also kept up with the blog—trying my best to document the excitement of the fall season with you all. I landed a few fun brand deals and tried to maintain what I worked so hard for over the summer. Come January, I celebrated two years of Styled by McKenz.

Winter came which meant cheering for our not so good basketball team and enjoying the days of a bit more free time now that cheer had died down a bit. However, this didn’t last long. I quickly became more involved in other clubs and such and throughout the early months of the year we hosted the first ever DHS Fashion Show, the spring play came and went, and winter break had come and gone within the blink of an eye.

In March, Lily and I became baseball managers—the start of so many wonderful friendships and adventures. We were busy helping out with games and practices every day of the week and the familiarity of being busy at all times of the week joined me again. The season was so good for me. It forced me to be productive with my time at home keeping me on track with blogging and leaving me with the best grades of the year. I was interacting with new friends who I genuinely enjoyed, meeting new families and adults, learning more about the game, and was getting community service hours all the while. It was heartbreaking when the season ended in early May.

Somewhere in between the busiest school year of my life, I figured out what I want in life. I’ve decided that I want to double major in college with Fashion Merchandising and Journalism, and if possible, minor in Business. I’ve got a firm grasp as to what I want and have learned, more than anything this year, that I want to do what I am passionate about, not what will be the most secure path.

Spring Break rolled around sometime around there and we toured what felt like a million colleges. Luckily, towards the end, I found one that felt just right! I’m not going to go too much into my college process just because I don’t want to get my hopes up before applying but after acceptances are out and such, I’d be happy to do a series on the college decision process.

I almost forgot to mention Prom. I’m not sure it’s as magical as the movies make it out to be but it was a whole lot of fun nonetheless. I went with Connor and we had a blast!

When May came and left, so did all of my senior friends as school was over for them which meant I was a one-woman show for a while. It wasn’t terrible but I held onto those moments with them. Graduation was here within a matter of days and we slow rolled it through the end of the school year.

I finished the year stepping into a lot of roles for my Senior year. I found out that I was going to be Class Treasurer, Editor In Chief for my school’s newspaper, Fashion Club President, and got accepted into the Nordstrom Fashion Ambassador program. I could not be happier about these new leadership roles that I will be taking on next year and left school feeling very at peace with all of my hard work.

Junior year taught me many things, but above all, I learned that you get one high school experience. So, although there are many things I missed out on because of all my commitments and coarse load, I joined in on so many more because of those them.

If you can get involved at your high school I encourage you to do so. You will meet new people, experience new things, and be challenged in all areas. Junior year was oh so good to me and I am so grateful that the “dreaded year” of high school was so far from that for me.

That’s all the rambling I’ll be doing today. How was your school year?! I’d love to hear below along with any other questions, comments, or requests you may have for me. Wishing you an awesome summer. With love, McKenz

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