Kalee Hernandez, a Senior at ELARA, has a busy life. Since the beginning of the year, she’s been doing many things to continue having a higher education in pursuing becoming a neuroscientist Having many responsibilities during Senior Year can take time and effort like applying for college, FAFSA, and saving money for Senior Due’s, Prom, and Gradnight. effort.

During Senior Year in High School, students have many responsibilities they have to do. Applying for College and federal funds is crucial for Seniors to do as well as having many fun activities during the second semester is something that everyone looks forward to when being a Senior. Kalee Hernandez is almost finished with her 2023-24 High School Year and will soon be graduating. She has gone through the process of applying for College and FAFSA, which is federal funding for students who don’t have enough money to pay for college tuition but this varies based on your family’s income. When applying to college you first have to research schools that have your preferred major as well as the distance of the campus. Make sure you finalize your college list when you’ve chosen where you want to go as well as ask for recommendation letters soon when asked. When applying you must input any standardized test score if succeeded and you’ll also have to answer personal insight questions which take a while to do, you’ll have to fill out the application and submit it once checked by a counselor. The FAFSA application is really easy to do and you’ll need to answer a few questions about yourself and need parent information as well as information about taxes. Make sure to let your counselor check before fully submitting.  Kalee has many responsibilities being a Senior which comes from doing all her work in classes.

Kalee wakes up every day at 6:00 – 6:30 am so that she can use the restroom before her sister or parents need to use it and make it on time to school. Her routine consists of brushing her teeth and doing her makeup. “The majority of the time it does take a little over an hour, hour and a half,” said Kalee on how long her makeup takes. After doing her makeup, Kalee gathers her stuff to leave her house but before that she eats. Most of the time she usually eats something in the car that’s quick like bread, a banana, or a yogurt. She always gets dropped off at school by her mom every morning and arrives between 8:00 – and 8:10 am. She starts off school by attending her first class which is Pre- Calculus and moves on to AP English Literature. After that, she takes a break for 15 minutes and sometimes eats what the cafeteria gives during nutrition. She continues her day by going to her Physiology class and then Leadership. Following that she goes to lunch and eats. Somedays during lunch she attends the clubs she’s in like Yearbook, GSA, and Fright Club. She ends school by attending her last two classes which are Service in P.E. and Economics. After school, she gets picked up by her mom and goes home and eats what her mom made her. She relaxes on her phone and starts her homework at around 5:00 – 7:00 pm. After finishing her homework, she relaxes and then showers as well as brushes her teeth to get ready for bed. Kalee goes to sleep around 11:00 pm or 12:00 am, she then starts a whole new day. 

As a Senior you have to apply to Colleges and FAFSA which can be stressful since there are specific deadlines. Kalee had applied to the colleges she wanted to attend. The process for her was “very stressful because of deadlines for PIQs and EOPs,” said Kalee. PIQs are questions about yourself that you answer for the Universities of California to be accepted into and EOPs are questions you answer to be accepted into a program in Cal State colleges that “provides education access and opportunity for low-income and educationally disadvantaged students of California,” said Cal State LA. Kalee had a mentor help her correct any mistakes she made while writing her response to the questions which helped her a lot since you have a limit on how many words and characters you can have. She so far has been accepted into San Fransisco State University and is still waiting to hear back from other schools. She had also applied for FAFSA the first week it opened. The process for her “wasn’t difficult and very short since my mom already went through the process of doing it,” said Kalee. Since Kalee had finished applying for College necessities she now focuses on getting good grades and finishing her Senior year as a good student.

Kalee manages to keep her grades up by retaking tests if failed and makes sure to get assignments done on time. The hardest classes for her are AP English Literature because “you have to be very detailed with answering questions,” and Pre-Calculus since it’s “hard to understand the math,” said Kalee. Being a Senior is tough since you need to be passing your classes for you to graduate. Although Kalee has difficult classes one of her favorites is Physiology because she likes learning about the human body and it connects with her major which is Neuroscience. Her goal for the second semester is to end with all A’s and enjoy all the activities Seniors get to do which are Prom, Gradnight, Senior activity week, and any field trips the Seniors will have. To be able to participate in these activities you need to have good grades and always attend  school. Kalee suggests you “should care about Senior year” since it will determine if you graduate or not.