As the school year approaches its end, it’s time to say goodbye to BOYCP’s first class of graduates.

High school is just a phase of our lives, but everyone should be a part of the experience. BOYCP might not be the largest high school, but it provides everyone a means to expand, whether it be socially, academically, or athletically.

The first year of high school is a dreadful experience: new grounds, new teachers, and new students. It is a stressful introduction to society, but eventually, everyone finds their area of comfort—creating new friends and finding one’s own personal pursuits.

Shortly after, freshmen year ends and the sophomore year begins: the year where everyone begins to find their true group of friends and differentiate themselves as individual characters. Sophomore year is also the year when one arrives at one of the most difficult decision: Diploma Programme, Career Programme, or Subject Certificate? The decision that dictates how one’s last two years feel. They can be the most difficult, most experimental, or most intricate years of high school. Irrespective of the decision, those two years are important to everyone. A taste of solidarity with independence.

The bonds that held firm grow stronger and unexpected friendships emerge. At the same time, the experience is coming to an end. Though the journey lasts for four years, it’s as if it was only a few days. Soon enough, one has to make the hardest decision of high school: is college for me? And if it is for me, what college is best for me? How will friendships uphold as paths split?

High school turns into more than just a “phase.” High school turns into a form of life, and it becomes a pain to envision a separation amongst those people who were once a family.

But it’s wholly a function of life, and it trains us for what awaits us—more, newer experiences.

– Fernando Soto