“I’ve been applying to colleges over the past few months, and that has required me to do a lot of self-reflection. What are my goals? What do I want to do in the world? In other words, who am I outside of NDA? This school has been such a big part of my life for as many years as I can remember; there’s a picture of me as a seven-year-old outside of Mrs. Brown’s room. It’s honestly kind of scary to think that I’m going to be leaving that all behind. It sometimes hits me in really trivial ways, like what am I going to do with my ridiculous amount of NDA apparel? Not just uniform clothes, but sweatshirts and t-shirts and jackets. But I’m also really excited to begin a new phase in my life, to start fresh in a place where my name doesn’t mean anything. I’ll be a blank slate. I’m going to be able to make a lot of big choices for myself, this time: which school I’ll go to, what I want to study, what I want to be involved in. I’m daunted by the next few months, but I’m also ecstatic. It’s a strange kind of limbo, but I don’t feel isolated in it. I think a lot of other seniors feel the same way.”