Marymount is a high school experience like no other, and not in the traditional sense of it being an all-girls private school, but rather, in the sense that Marymount creates a community that encourages you to do well and to grow from a timid young freshman into a fully functioning adult ready to take on the world.

My freshman year, I arrived at Marymount as a clueless freshman with no sense of who I was or who I wanted to be. I placed my uniform on for the first time, walked onto the bus, and looked around at my new classmates. I knew from the second I stepped off my first bus ride onto campus that my life would be changed for the better. I looked around at the older girls, and the bright energetic charisma they embodied on their first day filled me with happiness and hope. It was as if there was no place they’d rather be, that being at Marymount, at school, made them happy. The warm environment was addictive, and before I knew it, Marymount had become one of my favorite places in the world. Although school was still tricky and oftentimes draining, the Marymount community never failed to support you and lift you back up.

However, my experience at Marymount is unlike all those girls before me. After a short 8 months, COVID hit, and our freshman year was cut short. Online school made me crave the community I had built at school. I missed waking up at 6 am, wearing my uniform, and most of all, seeing my friends that Marymount had brought me from all over Los Angeles. As online school continued into sophomore year, the craving in my stomach to return only grew. I had never felt a need to be somewhere in my entire life; Marymount had become a core part of my life, and not being there every day ate away at me. 

Thankfully, by the time junior year came around, we were back to attending class in person every day. Even with the barrier of masks, you could feel the overwhelming happiness that filled every student on the first day of school, smiles beaming from ear to ear. I knew that the timid freshman passing by us to make their way to the freshman courtyard before class felt the same feeling I had felt on my first day. The spark in their eyes showed me they knew Marymount was the place for them to be as well. In a short two years, I had gone from being fresh meat to being an upperclassman without even feeling like anything had changed. I went from learning Marymount’s many traditions to being a part of their leaders. And most of all, I went from being a timid young girl who had no idea who she was to being confident in myself and my work, no longer scared of what others might say. 

And now, I am a senior awaiting her final days in the place that has made her the best version of herself. It’s hard to process that I’ll never have another Marymount first day, spirit week, cookies and cocoa, Father’s BBQ, Mother-Daughter tea, and many more. Leaving a place like Marymount behind is not an easy task. These four years will dissipate before your eyes, and like me, you’ll wake up one day realizing you’re coming up on your graduation. You start high school thinking the end will never come, and once it does, you’ll do anything in your power to go back in time.

To my fellow seniors, thank you for the best four years of my life. Our time at Marymount has indeed been a unique one, and we’ll go down in the records as the first yellow-colored class Marymount has ever seen.

To the underclassmen, cherish your time. It sounds cliche, but don’t let a single moment go by without immersing yourself in it because I know my classmates and I would give anything to go back in time and live a typical Marymount day just once more.