hello! my name is laicey, and as of september, i am a high schooler. it's just recently clicked to me that i have so much advice for middle schoolers, so i thought i would share with y'all. 1 - i know it's scary, but try to make friends across multiple groups. one of the best parts of my middle school years was that i didn't just stick to one group of friends or people. i made friends with girls and boys from all over the grade, and it helped me when it came to having friends in classes and also just when high school came around and all the friend groups switched around, i didn't feel lost or stranded. 2 - don't limit friends by gender. i promise you that school is so much more fun if you interact with both genders and have platonic hbs or hgs. 3 - coming from someone who ran with a more "popular" crowd, popularity matters so much less in high school. except for some invite-only parties, pretty much every high school function includes lots of friend groups. i won't sugar coat, some kids do get picked on/left out, but doing band or theater or more stereotypical "geek" extracurriculars won't affect your social life like you think it will. 4 - middle school kids are MEAN. they say things that are straight-up untrue or will just act aggrivated for no reason. don't take that to heart. 5 - i promise the boys DO mature (at least some of them) so just avoid/ignore them if they're being idiots. 6 - do your schoolwork. i know it doesn't matter in the long run, but it does matter in high school and i promise you it will save you buckets and buckets of stress if you start to lock in now. 7 - don't beat yourself up. everyone has an awkward phase, everyone is feeling weird or insecure. i really hope these helped a little bit, love ya bunches! - laicey
