School's Out! What's next?

For High School seniors, schooling has reached its conclusion. For some, it is a moment of personal triumph, relief, or even liberation. For others, it is a commemorative event, a milestone in the road of life and success, the markings for the ending of an era; and with that comes the departure of close friends. School has been twelve years of an educational process that has cultivated not only academic success, knowledge, awareness and aspiration, but a note-worthy collection of memories, both of the grief schoolwork and grades instigated, and the luxury of spending the majority of every year with our friends. As the formal graduation ceremony draws ever nearer, the celebration and jubilee of our accomplishments is only beginning. Within the next couple of weeks various graduation parties will occur. These will lead up to the central moment when each and every graduating senior will shake hands with the principle and receive into their pencil-weary hands the rolled-up paper stamped with the bold and italicized cursive ink that will allot them the key into the multifarious opportunities that life will propose. Many seniors will have mixed feelings, sad that the academic and social experience they have grown accustomed to for, as of now, the entirety of the lives, comes to a final close; marked by the final goodbyes held with friends and all we hold most dear to our hearts. How does this relate to movies, you may wonder? Well, as this summer marks the ending of an era of schooling, this summer also signifies the finale of another era. For ten years the Harry Potter movie adaptions, each one expanding and perpetuating the effect and legacy of Rowling's literary one-day-to-be classic series, have rolled across movie screens and our imaginations. Audiences have been captivated by the wonders of the magical world, but more specifically many of which are seniors this year. A wide majority of, at least from my class, graduating seniors have grown up reading the book series, and subsequently waiting in long lines to relive the fantastic adventures on the big screen. For ten years, today's seniors have been growing up with school, and Harry Potter. Many spent their days studying in school, then coming home to read the next chapter of the at-the-time latest Harry Potter book. This summer will be a summer like no other. The era of school ends at Graduation this summer, and the era of Harry Potter ends this summer as well, only weeks after Seniors become Graduates. I can only imagine that for some, this summer may be emotional. However, is also serves as the grand opening of a chapter for the beginnings of a new era: college.