photo: Herkie/ BY-NC-SA

Marlon Stennett, Youth Mic

My high school prom just passed last week and I was just measured for my cap and gown. High school is certainly coming to an end. Next year I’ll be going off to college, a basic junior college in Manhattan to study theatre technology and acting. But as we prepare to leave high school for new things, we’re not just cleaning out lockers. We’re leaving so much behind, and we’re preparing to face new challenges.

You know everybody has a fear about going off to college so I decided to interview some of my closest friends, who are high school graduates of 2009, about what they fear in college. Here’s Skyler Richards: “I’m going to miss my friends and my teachers.” Skyler and I go to school together at Bedford Academy in Brooklyn, New York. Skyler’s going to miss her old teachers, but Lorenzo Vargas, he worries about his new teachers: “In college they might not be as caring—they might not care as much about me. It’s going to be more stressful.”

Worries build up to fear, and quite frankly, Lorenzo has another fear. Everything is going to be new. “I fear leaving school,” says Lorenzo, “leaving my mother, leaving the area where I feel comfortable.”  

They say once we are in college, we are officially on our own. That means we also can become lazy and no one is there to correct us. That’s the deepest fear of Clayton Holly: “Not doing the work. Um, not being on top of my game. Just slacking off, basically.”

I know I’m going to face all those things. But if people were to ask me: what is my deepest fear about going off to college, it’s that I just don’t know what to expect. Maybe I am going to miss my old teachers. Maybe I am going to miss my family. And maybe I might just slack off. But I still don’t know what I’m going to find in college. All I know is that I’m leaving a place I like to call my second home. I’m only moving to Manhattan but it feels like I’m moving to another country. But then again, college is a step to big dreams and big dreams always come with big changes.

For Youth Radio, I’m Marlon Stennett.