We all grew up watching movies expecting high school to be like Mean Girls, A Cinderella Story, or High School Musical. We expect lunchtime musical numbers where everyone breaks out into dance and finding love at first sight. We expect witnessing football players throw kids into trashcans and snobby popular kids ruling the halls of high school. Now that we are actually in high school, however, we know that is definitely not the case.

High school is not and never will be like any of the movies we’ve seen. Instead, high school, as much as we love or hate it, is exactly what we decide to make of it. After an amazing homecoming Student Council put on, everyone is talking about how much it sucked. Newsflash: Zach Efron and Vanessa Hudgens aren’t here to make out with you. Womp. Womp.

Everyone thinks they know what high school is going to be like, but no one expects it to be so unlike the movies, whether that be a good or bad thing. We all have the stereotypical fantasies of high school like “singing and dancing in the cafeteria,” says sophomore Joey Casasanta, or “getting kissed by the star football player in the rain at a football game,” says tenth grader Olivia Belton. As much as we all wish that would happen in real life, the reality is it never does.

Realistically, high school can be really shocking and nothing like our expectations. “It’s a lot less exciting and there’s a lot more homework than I thought,” says junior Emily Ewing. No one warns us about how much work we actually get in high school. It is harder and more demanding than middle school.

Another thing is the school spirit. In movies, everyone is hyped about school all day everyday. Juliet Steinhauer, a senior, says, “I thought people would care more about school spirit, but people are consumed in their social status rather than their high school spirit.” Unlike High School Musical, it is not as easy as it seems to get the entire school involved and excited about everything.

For others, they think that by the time we are well into high school, we will have everything figured out and will know what we want to do for rest of our lives. Junior Catie Painter “was expecting more of a change, but [she’s] still a kid working [her] way through life unsure of what [she] wants to do with [her] life.”

Going into high school, most people think that the friends they start out with will be their friends forever, but, in reality, we all “grow apart and go our separate ways,” says Mattira Morales, a senior. Our high school expectations can sometimes get to us and we do not realize the things we thought would be simple are not. Although, sometimes our low expectations of high school can turn out to be better in reality than we expect.

Going into high school can seem scary, but the reality can be better than we expected. Senior Danny Kowalski says that high school “is built up to be this extreme experience but when you actually get into it, it becomes a normal, daily thing.” On the first day of school, one of the scariest parts is wondering if there will be a perfect friend group to fit into. We expect to walk into the cafeteria and immediately identify the different cliques. But in reality, “There aren’t really definite friends groups in high school. Everyone mixes together unlike the movies make it out to be,” says junior Lauren Reddington. Furthermore, in Mean Girls, high school seems like a place where popularity is the one thing that gets anyone anywhere. Senior Ameryst Swansen-Valentine  “always expected high school to be a huge popularity contest, but it’s really not! Everyone has their own passions and friends and it doesn’t matter how popular you are.”

Our fearful expectations of high school can lead us into thinking that high school might be the worst time in our lives, but in reality, it is not bad at all.

“High school comes with a lot of responsibilities and change, yet is filled with wonderful experiences,” says senior Aiden Dimachkie. Even though high school might not be how it seems in the movies, high school is a time in our lives to have fun, meet new people and experience new things.

After we graduate, we will not ever get to experience the adventures and memories we make in high school again. So let us embrace this time in our lives and experience high school to the fullest.