By Gabriel Brogan

This isn’t a true senior year. I turned seventeen just last month. I haven’t served my full sentence. But here I am, about to graduate, at the end of a road I didn’t mean to cut short when I set out on it. Though I have only been at McCaskey three years, I think my experience may have some valuable takeaways for anyone at the start of, or in the midst of, their time here. 

Entering McCaskey in 9th grade, I felt like I had my path laid out for me. My older sister Frances told me what teachers to request and what classes to take. She was in the IB diploma, so I just assumed I would be too. 

As a 9th grader with no idea what to expect at McCaskey, and this wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. I am grateful for Frances’ recommendations (she’s why I’m on the Vidette) and for the high-achieving example she set. She gave me a loose roadmap based on her McCaskey experience, and following it led me to great teachers, great classes, and good grades.

I took Frances’ advice to heart. I knew you had to show consistency in your extracurriculars for your college application, so I started long-distance running seriously in 9th grade. My friends from middle school were doing it, and it became my life. 2 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. This may sound grueling, and it was, but it was what I needed in 9th grade. Structure, a close-knit community, and some serious character-building. 

I was on track—student-athlete, future IB candidate, AP classes, good attendance and all that. Running and school took up the majority of my time, so I didn’t think much about what I was missing. I could have joined more clubs, but I told myself running was too big a commitment. Don’t get me wrong, it is a big commitment- but in reality I was just scared to leave the safety of the cross-country team and venture into the vast wilderness of extracurriculars alone. I could have met more people, but I had plenty of friends, even if they all did the same things and lived in the same neighborhood as me.  I told myself meeting new people wasn’t worth the effort. Again, I let being a timid 9th-grader stand in the way of potential positive experiences. 

And that realization is my main takeaway from high school. Don’t let anything stop you from branching out. I felt like my path was laid out for me in 9th grade, but that was my sister’s path. Nobody made me follow it, I followed it because it was easy and safe to do so. Nobody was making me run either. I chose that, and chose to make it my only thing. Easy (at least socially speaking) and safe. 

It’s hard to be a freshman in high school, and it’s all too easy to surrender agency to what you feel like you “have to do” or “should do.” Push yourself. If you’re curious about a class, try it out, even if none of your friends are in it or you think you’re bad at writing or math or whatever it is. If you are a two-season athlete, fill that time in the winter with something cool. Volunteer. Do the musical. Join a club. Start your own club. Try and do things outside of what everyone in your circle is already doing, get connected with people you wouldn’t normally meet. 

At the end of my sophomore year, after 6 seasons of distance running and not a whole lot else, I knew a dozen lanky white boys (all of whom I love, no shade meant) and had taken the same classes as Frances, more or less. These years were great, but they were spent well within the bounds of my comfort zone. Eventually, it got a little stifling. By my sophomore spring, running felt like drudgery, and the prospect of taking my slot in a TOK class and grinding out the IB diploma for the next two years like everyone else I knew seemed increasingly unappealing. I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why I suddenly wanted to quit running and skip the diploma, but these notions were powerful. 

So I quit running at the end of the spring track season. My vague negative view of the prospect of the two-year IB Diploma eventually spilled over into a vague negative view of doing two more years of highschool at all. That summer, I concocted a plan that would have blown the mind of the timid 9th grader that showed up to the travel doors of East in the fall of 2022. To escape that timid 9th grader, who did what he assumed he should do, was likely why I concocted it. I was going to graduate early, and take a gap-year to hike the Appalachian Trail. 

I’m not a Boy Scout or a nature expert, but it just seemed like the right thing to do. This may be cliche, but the plan came to me in an epiphany one morning sitting on the porch of my cabin at summer camp in North Carolina, staring into the gorgeous Smoky Mountain Range. I had spent long enough in my comfort zone, and now I planned to launch myself out of it from a cannon going 500 miles per hour. 

Is the plan a little crazy? For sure. Some people were supportive, others thought I shouldn’t be graduating so soon. That I owed McCaskey another year, or that I wouldn’t be ready to leave. But all throughout this year, I’ve kept checking in on that gut feeling, and it keeps telling me the trail is where I should be.  I’ve thought this over a thousand times, analyzed it from a thousand angles, and that gut feeling is what I’m left with. It feels like I am taking the reins for good. Taking charge, wrenching the train off the tracks and towards something new, something challenging and tantalizing. 

Going through this last year at McCaskey has given me a good deal of insight on that gut feeling. After just doing what you do for two years, I couldn’t take it. I needed to strip down my life to what was good and what was no longer needed, and build something different from the rubble. Running, and a fourth year at McCaskey, didn’t make the cut. Instead, I played my first season of tennis, was president of Model UN and started writing a book. I met new people, strengthened new friendships. Branched out. 

All throughout this year, a thought has been nagging me. “Why didn’t I do this earlier?” Why didn’t I play tennis earlier? Why didn’t I introduce myself to them earlier?” The list goes on. It is probably impossible to finish highschool without a single regret, but don’t let this be one of them. Take that risk. Try that sport. Introduce yourself earlier. Ask your counselor to add you to that class. Don’t tell any stories about who you are or what you should do before you get here, find out along the way. All things considered, I don’t think I wasted my high school experience by running so much or not taking more risks. The choices I did make gave me a lot—good friends, discipline, a good education and a good attitude. I am truly grateful to this school for what it has done for me. But there still is that nagging what if. Don’t leave any loose ends untied when you graduate—talk to everyone who seems cool, take every class that sounds interesting, try every extracurricular that looks fun. Don’t take your time at McCaskey for granted, and make it as rich as it can possibly be.