The harsh shriek of the dismissal bell echoes through the halls, and like a heavenly trumpet call, it sends students scrambling from classrooms left and right. Junior Hannah Reetz rushes out of her Spanish class already mourning a wasted hour and a half of her life. She does not want to be here.
Reetz slips past a clump of people parked directly in the middle of the hallway and longs for a place miles away. A place with a larger vocabulary, she thinks, as a group of boys next to her maintain a conversation consisting of 99% curse words. Holding on to the thought of graduation, only a few months away, she shoulders her bag and remembers the A&M acceptance letter sitting at home.
Reetz plans to graduate a year early with the class of 2020 instead of her own class of 2021. She began to dream outside of Legacy’s halls the moment she set foot in them and her need to get out and experience the world for herself has grown stronger with each day.
“I’ve had thoughts of [graduating early] ever since freshman year honestly, but I kept going back and forth,” Reetz said. “This year I decided for sure I’m going to do it.”
Mr. Jeremy Ferman, Reetz’s theater director and mentor, has watched her grow as a student and an actor for the past two and a half years and believes she will thrive outside of high school.
“She’s always been a bit more mature in the sense that she knew that she wanted to get to real-life faster,” Ferman said. “I think she’ll be great.”
Reetz has her required math credits, but to fast track her graduation she must take two science classes. She must also take two tests in February to receive credit for English 4 and Government and Economics without partaking in the actual classes. She believes that extending these courses for another year would waste time she could spend getting a head start on life.
“I don’t really enjoy high school anyway,” Reetz said, “so if I stay here I don’t want to take those fill-in class and waste a year when I could be getting a year toward my career.”
She finds the minute by minute structure of high school suffocating and looks forward to taking control of her own time.
“I’m more of a free, self-paced, do-it-yourself person so coming to class every day especially classes that aren’t needed it just gets to me,” Reetz said. “I feel like [with] college I can choose my classes, choose my times and that’s more my thing.”
On top of classwork she sees as pointless, Reetz also finds the high school dramatics overrated and unnecessary.
“[I don’t like] all the drama,” Reetz said. “People are just so much. It gets annoying.”
Although far from enjoying the monotonous day-to-day life of a high school student, Reetz said her experience hasn’t been all busywork and pointless drama.
“[I appreciate] the people I’ve met through high school who are friends,” Reetz said, “and I’ve definitely learned lessons. Although they’ve come from bad experiences, they’ve taught me I have changed over the few years.”
Reetz faces graduation with confident hope for the future and she believes she will be ready when the time comes – preferably sooner rather than later.
“I think it’ll definitely be a challenge and I understand that adulting is paying for stuff and all that and it’ll definitely be harder,” Reetz said, “but I want to be able to be on my own and learn on my own. I think I’m ready. I hope I’m ready.”
