Every student’s high school career culminates with their graduation, when their achievements and post-secondary plans are recognized with cords, speeches, and honors. The ceremony concludes with students saying goodbye to their high school and moving on to adult life.

This ceremony is particularly special for our seniors. Many have attended Brown School since elementary or middle school. For some, saying goodbye to their classmates marks the end of a 12-year era as the class of 2023 separates to attend college or join the workforce. Although this can feel jarring, the advice of alumni and teachers can ease the departure- reassuring these new graduates that there is, in fact, life beyond these walls.

That outside life is especially tangible for 2022 alumni. Many are now ending their freshman year of college, but still remember life at Brown like it was yesterday. “Graduation can be really emotional and even scary. I cried through my entire ceremony,” said Emma Summers, who graduated from Brown and began pursuing Psychology in the UofL Honors College. “It’s a huge transition to make, but as soon as the fall semester started in August, I was happy and felt prepared.”

As for college, Summers had a few bits of wisdom for this year’s graduates. “College seemed like a really intimidating environment, but I got settled in relatively quickly. Enjoy your student orientation, go to Welcome Week events if they interest you, try to meet people if you want to, and those connections you make during orientation and Welcome Week can be significant, even if they don’t last,” she advised. “Also, try and connect with professors if you’re going to college, especially if you want to be involved with academia later. Making professor connections can be hard in large classes, but it can be so worth it.”

Summers also endorses changing your mind, even once you’re already in college. “One more small bit of advice is not being afraid to switch majors and explore new areas. I was extremely fortunate to figure out what I wanted to do early, but it’s hard for most people.” Summers’ boyfriend Christian Cotton, a Brown School alumni of the Class of 2021, opted to attend Watts Atelier of the Arts in 2022 and “he’s much happier than he would’ve been had he gone to UofL like he planned. College can be good, but it’s not everything.”

“The biggest advice I’d give to those attending college is not to overwork yourself,” current University of Kentucky freshman and service fraternity Vice President Alex Billings suggested. “Brown conditions us to go above and beyond, which is great in a lot of ways. It, however, led me down a path of biting off way more than I could chew in college. My grades suffered. My stress rose. I had less time for friends. All around, it was a rough combination. As important as college is, I wish someone had told me that it’s just as important to make memories as it is to study and thrive academically. Once college is over, adult life really sets in. The freedom you have in college is a level of freedom you’ll never get again. Go wild, but not too wild…”

“Senior year felt like an absolute dream. Senioritis is real. I felt totally pampered. I felt like the star of a TV drama,” he joked. “But above all else, there was something so beautiful and rewarding about treasuring my last moments with the people I’ve grown up with! The last month was the hardest. The harsh reality is that, on graduation day, I had to tell myself ‘this is the last day I’ll get to see some of these people.’ Now, a year later, that couldn’t be more true. The Class of 2022 lost a one-of-a-kind graduate in a fatal car accident shortly after graduation. The last moments we get as a group are very special,” he added somberly. “What I’d recommend to this year of seniors is to make as many memories as possible.”

Graduation is not only an emotional event for seniors and their families. Teachers also have to say goodbye to students they’ve known for years. “This is my sixth-and-a-half year teaching at Brown. I’ve been around them for as long as I’ve been here at Brown,” history teacher Alex Murphy said. He began his first year at Brown as the Class of 2023 entered sixth grade, and feels a special attachment to the first class of middle schoolers he taught. “No matter what anyone tells them, I feel like this group, they can do it. That’s what I like about them, they have a lot of personality and I think that’s going to help carry them. They are very determined, they’re a great group. They’ve been one of the best groups I’ve had the pleasure of teaching here at Brown. Yeah, they can do whatever. I know it sounds corny, it sounds cheesy, but they have the drive to do whatever they want,” he said of this year’s seniors. 

As for advice, Murphy had some wise words for the graduates. “Seek help when you need it. Do not wait until it’s too late, no matter if it’s academic, or even work, seek out the people that are willing to help you because there are people that are willing to do that. Don’t try to do everything by yourself. It’s going to make everything very, very tough on you.”

“The Class of 2023 is literally the reason I am still a teacher. It has been crazy to see them go from sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade, junior year- I am so happy that I’ve been able to teach them, and I’m really gonna miss them,” he concluded.

Science teacher Mike Moreland is yet another teacher who sees students through their more awkward stages. His role as freshman Physics teacher gives him a chance to watch students grow into themselves throughout their first year of high school, and the effect is even more noticeable when he takes them back for Chemistry their junior year. He also reencountered several seniors through his Makerspace class this year. “Keep striving to learn new things,” he advised.  “I know that many people got senioritis this year and they forget about how enjoyable it is to learn something new.”

Moreland also emphasized the importance of changing paths. “It is very rare that students stick with their original major or career. I switched from engineering to geology to teaching. Don’t become married to one option or college career,” he said. “Keep an open mind about your major and actively seek out new opportunities and experiences that help you figure out what you’d like to do.”

“[I wish I’d known] how little high school matters as soon as you leave it. Yeah, it doesn’t matter- your ACT scores are no longer relevant, never again in your life,” counseled Jason Linden, Brown’s upper-level English teacher. “I think I would have prioritized better. I think whenever you go to college… There's a lot of figuring out what you want to spend your time on, and I think I simultaneously would have had more fun and also worked a little harder. Because, looking back, I clearly could have done both of those things, but I spent a bunch of time being, you know, dithery and angsty in normal cliche teenager ways, and that feels like a little bit of a waste. It’s not a big deal- that’s really, like- freshman year of college, kids, is not a big deal. Just have some fun, and if you don’t like something, it’s fine. And do your homework.”

Even students who started at Brown their freshman or sophomore year have most likely encountered Linden, as he teaches junior and senior classes English 3, AP Research, Creative Writing, and AP Literature. “I really enjoyed [my AP Lit] group of kids… it’s mostly seniors. That class had a bunch of good discussions. No class is perfect, but they, generally speaking, they’re interesting and bright and thoughtful, and I just kind of appreciated that overall.”

His final advice to the class: “Don’t get too worked up if things aren’t perfect. If things aren’t perfect, that’s fine, but they can still be very good, even if they aren’t perfect. The end. By Jason Linden.”

Most advice to the Class of 2023 can be summed up in a short quote from Mike Moreland: “Good luck and keep in touch!”

Have you ever scrolled through TikTok and come across a video of someone playing a video game or decorating a cake with a movie clip or YouTube animated storytime above it? If you use TikTok regularly, there’s a high chance you have. I’m here to go over what led us here, so pull up some Subway Surfers gameplay and be prepared for the evolution of the longest going TikTok trend.

Where did this trend come from? In 2021, people started posting videos of Subway Surfers gameplay while reading personal anonymous viewer stories. This evolved into AskReddit stories, and the gameplay changed to Minecraft parkour. Soon, another trend emerged. This trend was people posting movie recap videos with a text to speech bot poorly going over the plot of the movie. Below the movie review was videos of people fixing broken furniture or household objects in unconventional ways, such as stuffing uncooked ramen into a hole in a car, or sunflower seeds into a broken table leg. The movie recap trend turned into playing a full movie over mobile game gameplay. The movie would be split up into parts on the poster’s account. Most of the clips were accompanied by Chinese subtitles, which became a meme to the people who avidly and frequently watch these videos.

Soon a new trend would take hold on this market, dubbed “The Family Guy pipeline.” Most movie clips were replaced by Family Guy clips, but the mobile games stayed a main and important part of these videos. Family Guy clips stuck around for a few months. At one point, you couldn’t scroll three videos without seeing a Family Guy clip over gameplay of a bad mobile game. After a few months a new adult animation show became the king of mobile gameplay: South Park.

South Park had been trending a couple months back, with new fans coming to it and older fans criticizing the new fans. Eventually, the trend died down and the newer fans grew quiet about the show. Soon, South Park clips started showing up accompanying the iconic mobile gameplay. As the episodes were becoming more accessible, more fans started appearing.

Where is this trend now? It is still going strong. The shows you often see are South Park, The Amazing World of Gumball, Young Sheldon, and Close Enough. Nothing has changed about the format. Everything has stayed the same since the transition to Family Guy. Many blame these videos for the younger generations’ attention span issues, or use our enjoyment of them as an example for it, but is this really the case?

I asked sophomore Jack Richardson where he stood on this and if he thought that these kinds of videos were a good example of our worsening attention span. “Yes,” he said, and elaborated, “these help me pay attention to videos, but I still think it’s telling of my bad attention span. Like sometimes, I'll play games and watch something like that on the side, but I also have a pretty bad attention span. I mean I don't think it's a huge issue but in general having a short attention span is often a disadvantage. Like, 'Family Guy funny moments' and Subway Surfers gameplay isn't rotting our brains or anything.” When asked for an example of a short attention span being a disadvantage, he said, “If you have a short attention span, then you can't do stuff like schoolwork as efficiently or be as engaged in some media. The main disadvantage is school. Actually, the worse your attention span is, the worse you will do, like I do fine in school, I get A's and B's but I would do better if I had a better attention span.”

At the end of the day, it’s really just another trend that will one day burn out. The odd thing about this trend is that it’s been going on for two, nearly three, years. Only time will tell — however, it seems to be slowing down, and I see much less videos of this type on my TikTok "For You" page.

With Mothers’ Day already passing and Fathers’ Day closely approaching, it's time to start thinking about what gifts you should get. These holidays are about celebrating those who fit these positions and showing how you love them: spending time with those parental figures and honoring them for what they do. This holiday is not necessarily about buying gifts, but what you can do for them in return. 

Jordyn Luttrell, a sophomore at Brown High School, said what she likes to get her mom and dad on these days. “I would get either a basket with different pool floats,water bottles,tanners, beach towels, etc. for Mother’s Day and for Father’s Day I would make a basket with different types of coffee, mugs, candy, running gear, and more.” 

These holidays are good for DIY gifts. Making homemade gifts can show your love for these individuals, and can be something simple yet cute. Making a homemade card, writing a poem, or painting something are all good ideas. Also, making self care items like sugar scrubs, bath salts, and bath bombs may be a simple way to tell them to take care of themself. Some other ideas could be cooking or baking. Making cookies, cupcakes, chocolate covered strawberries are all great ideas. Making breakfast, lunch, or dinner can also be ways to show you care about them. These gifts are all based on personal preference and what that person actually likes. Finding new recipes to try or making a painting of something they love can show your love. 

Shelby Geraghty, a sophomore at Brown High School, stated how she gets gifts for her parents. “I usually make my gifts on these days because they are more sentimental.” 

When buying a gift, you don't always have to buy the most expensive thing. Find something that will be useful to them. Gift cards are always a safe option, even though they might feel like a small gift. Keep in mind that this isn't a huge holiday, so the gifts don't have to be too much. Showing that you care about them is the most important part of these days.

Remy LeBoeuf, a sophomore at Brown High School, said his opinion on what Mother’s day and Father’s day mean to him. “For me it means to celebrate my dad and mom as it is their special day to recognize all that they do for me and my brother.”

Spending time with those parental figures is the most important part of Mothers Day and Fathers Day. Taking them out to eat, having a picnic, and going on a small trip can also be good gifts if you have the time. These can be easy ways to show your appreciation for them and multiple people can attend to enjoy celebrating them. 

Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day give us an opportunity to show our love and appreciation for those who take care of us. Being a parent can be a challenging position, so letting one or two days out of the year be just for them specifically is reasonable. Even though a physical gift may be nice, it is more about giving them a day of value for all they do.