If you were to ask most people what their greatest fear is, you’d get a wide variety of answers. If you were to ask a middle-school student, you’d likely hear, “going into high school.”

As the school year comes to an end, eighth graders are preparing for their transition to a whole new school. Emmy Creager, a current Medea Creek student, is in just that position.

Sitting on the floor in one of the bedrooms of my house, Creager opens up on her thoughts of graduating middle school.

“I’m kind of excited to start high school,” she said, “but it’s kind of sad because I’ve been in Medea for three years straight, so it’s kind of a sad goodbye, but I’m excited for Oak Park High.”

She lets out a small laugh as she finishes her answer.

Creager says that what she has heard about high school depends on who she has asked, with different students voicing different opinions—though she says she’s heard “mostly good things.”

She’s particularly excited for cheerleading at the high school level.

Her greatest fear? Final exams: “I’ve never taken [them] before.”

Creager also said that she’ll have to balance between school and her after-school activities due to the increased workload.

She is most excited for “the experience.”

“You get to meet new people and… it’s a lot bigger than Medea too,” Creager said.

Creager said she is saddened to leave her long time friends from both elementary and middle school, but she expresses her excitement at meeting new friends in her upcoming years at Oak Park High School. She also says that she has friends at OPHS currently who can lend her a hand next year.

As one class enters, another leaves; the class of 2015 graduates June 11, and is passing its last days in high school. Haydn Marshall, a current senior at Oak Park High School, openly shares his advice to the freshmen attending the school next year.

For students coming in as freshmen, Marshall suggests “to study every day and to make sure you are on top of all your assignments.”

He adds, “I didn’t necessarily do that, but I wish I did.”

Marshall says an important lesson he learned in high school was “not to succumb to peer pressure, or to just be yourself.”

All ninth graders seem to dread the first day of school. Marshall’s advice is short, sweet and to the point. Perhaps it also functions as sounds advice for the high school experience as a whole:

“Just get to class on time and don’t be an idiot.”