The end of the year is fast approaching. The seniors have left us with a bittersweet farewell, and the rest of us are counting down the days until we can finally sleep in, go to the beach, stay out late, and repeat.

The freshmen, however, have a different mindset. For them, the end of the year means one thing and one thing only: I’m not gonna be a freshman anymore! The scariest year of high school is over for them, and throughout the course of the year, most of them have made the transition from a typical clueless underclassmen with an oversize backpack, to a semi-mature high school student who’s got a hang of how Niles West works.

One freshman in particular feels that in her past year, she’s learned not only enough to get her through her three remaining years at West, but enough to turn her experiences as a freshman into lessons that will guide her throughout the remainder of her life.

At the beginning of the year, you would easily find freshman Marnie Gomez surrounded by a group of friends, laughing and gossiping giddily. Though she may have seemed carefree and eager to start her career at Niles West, Gomez confesses that she was afraid to walk through the double doors of our school because of the upperclassmen. “They’re just a lot older,” she simply said.

Having a typical freshman mindset, Gomez admits that she thought that she was going to be friends with her then-friends freshmen Alana Martin, Julia Easter, Jordyn Glotzer, Val Zadro, Vicki Tirovolas, and sophomore Matilda Zenkic,  for the rest of her life, but she soon found out that that was not the case.

“People change, and we drifted,” said Gomez, shrugging her shoulders. “I feel like in high school,” she continued, “you try and fit in with the wrong people. My sister told me that in high school, she tried to fit in, and that was a mistake. [She always told me to] do your own thing.”

Which is exactly what Gomez did. She began hanging out with a new crowd, which consists of the girls that she now refers to as her best friends, sophomores Sammi Schwarzberg and Sara Sogol. Having been so close to both underclassmen and slightly upperclassmen, Gomez admits that her current best friends have a more mature mindset, which is something that she appreciates.

Since the beginning of this school year, she is aware of that fact that she has also changed significantally.  When asked what about her has changed the most, she looks up for a moment and replies that you should always keep your guard up.

“Protect yourself. Before you start to hang out with someone, think of what they do, and if you want to be a part of it.”

Protecting yourself has led to Gomez realizing one other thing about high school – the way you see yourself.

“I used to be all innocent and little,” said Gomez, looking down. “I went with the flow, but now I’m not any of that. I wish I could have kept that innocence, but the people that I hung out [influenced that.]”

Although she does miss middle school – “I like little schools, and I like knowing everyone,” she claims – looking back on herself at the beginning of the year, she wishes that she would have known then what she knows now.

“Advice for eighth graders who are going to be entering high school next year? Make sure that your friends are your real friends. You shouldn’t let anyone in high school change you or the way you act. High school is harder than middle school – don’t let people come in between friendships or your grades. Don’t let what’s going on outside of school influence what’s happening inside of school,” she said.

Though high school didn’t exactly meet her expectations, Gomez is looking forward to next year.

“I’m just excited that I’m not gonna be a freshman anymore,” she says, smiling. “It’s also gonna be a fresh start, I’ll be more experienced and I’ll know what to expect.”

With her fresh start, Gomez plans on trying out for basketball next year, but if that doesn’t work out, she wants to give cheerleading a second chance.

Instead of letting her various experiences such as losing close friends and realizing that the real world is a lot harder than she thought define her, Gomez has chosen to use freshman year as a lesson that she will not soon forget, which is an example that everyone – not only incoming freshmen – would do well to follow.