They say once you get into high school you have more freedom. Teachers, administrative, and even your parents would start to see you as an adult and as you go through high school you will mature and see yourself becoming an adult. I believe that statement is halfway true. My 9th grade was a growing point, not that the rest of high school is not, but 9th grade would be the biggest growing area for me. When you are still in middle school you do not think much about your future, you may start to look at options, but it is not a big deal for you. Once you get into 9th grade you start to mature, Gaffney has the Institute of Innovation. It is like a second school that students go to during the school day, it helps students to start getting an idea of want they want to do in the future. They have cosmetology, nursing, AutoTech, animal and plant sciences, and more. It gets you ready to start planning and thinking about what you want to do with your life. In my 9th, 10th, and 11th I took Health Science 1, 2 and 3 honors. I also took Animal/Plant Science classes. I was stuck between wanting to be a nurse or a veterinarian. I finally decided on nursing and stayed in the Animal/Plant Science classes to get the experience and because I still wanted to learn about animals. My experience through high school is not going to be the same as anyone else’s, I definitely matured and had a glow-up. In 9th grade I was the new kid, I had just moved here and was starting over, I cared about what everybody else thought, and I was insecure. I eventually made a bunch of friends, but they were nothing but drama. In 10th grade I had some of the same friends and made new ones. Again, it was a lot of drama, I started to realize that it was kind of dumb to be in so much drama, but I did not try to get out of it. Towards the end of 10th grade, I got my first job and I started to learn some responsibility; I made some more friends at work. I started to realize what I wanted to do and came up with a plan of how I was going to get where I wanted to be in life. Throughout 11th grade I knew what I wanted in life and my plan to get there, I even had some backup plans in case my first one did not go as I wanted it to. I was going to get through high school, go to college for nursing right after, work and live my life. I lost most of my friends in 11th grade because I realized that I was getting too old to be dealing with drama and I was done with it, it was childish. Now as a 12th grader I am glad I decided to take dual enrollment, I can get through high school and some of my college, take less generals for college, get through nursing classes faster, and live my life like I have wanted to since I was little.