07 Apr 2021

When you’re in high school, it’s easy to get caught up in what everyone thinks of you. After all, you’ve spent years with the same people; watching them make their way through crushes and fights, break ups and best friends. There’s drama about who is friends with who and whether the gossip is true. And amongst it all, everyone is just trying to make everyone like them–to be ‘popular’.

It’s hard to tell what exactly makes someone popular. For some, it’s a seamless transition through puberty while the rest of us struggle with acne and growth spurts. For others, it's always having ragin' house parties or bringing the best snacks to share around at lunch. And for some, it’s just a pure genetic fluke that seems to make everyone either want to be them or be with them...

Regardless of the science behind it, all you had to do was look at someone in your school and know. It’s not hard to pick the cool kid from the crowd and while you’re at school it's easy to be jealous of them.

Here’s the harsh truth (sorry popular people). After graduation, no one cares! Unfortunately, you can't really bang "I was voted most popular in school" on your resume. It's not really gonna get you far, in fact, among other things–like your marks or how much money you owe your mate for buying you a can of coke at lunch–how popular you were in high school will be forgotten.

No one will care about whether everyone wanted to sit with you at lunch or if you had the whole grade liking your latest photo. That massive fight where everyone picked sides will be long forgotten and all the rumours won’t mean anything. The ‘cool’ group will just be another bunch of people, with any status being left behind at the school gates.

When you graduate, how many best friends you had or whether you got invited to someone’s party won’t matter. You’ll forget about the girl who ditched your group and the guy who sat next to you at lunch that one time.

Instead, you’re going to remember the nights you spent pigging out with your best mate, marathoning Harry Potter and having dnms when you were meant to be studying. You’ll remember trying to hold in laughter so hard that it physically hurt in class whilst the teacher gave you a deathy. You'll remember the abundance of Maccas runs with your mates where you just thought, this is livin, as you ate your choccy sundae. You’ll remember athletics carnivals where you and your crew dressed up in house colours and lounged around on the high jump mat instead of doing the events. The 18ths you may have not been invited to will be replaced by memories of ones you were and had the time of your life without stressing about whether you looked or acted cool enough.

After everything, that ‘popular’ group will be people you forget about and you’ll wonder what made you want to be like them in the first place. You’ll realise that there are things that are so much more important and worth so much more energy than trying to get as many friends as possible or being invited to the most parties. 

I'll leave this with a quote from my favourite movie Almost Famous: "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Seriously, being "cool" is pretty overrated anyways. 😉

Here’s the goss. Year13 is running an online careers exhibition designed to help you find your passion and plan your future!

Whether you’re dazed and confused when it comes to your future plans, or you’re keen to learn how to land your dream job, this expo has something for everyone! Running from May 17-19, you’ll hear from 30+ red hot speakers and over a hundred exhibitors exploring work, study and travel.

RSVP here so you don’t miss any of the speakers (like The Inspired Unemployed, Dr Karl or Kath Ebbs, to name drop a few). Get keen!