Has anyone ever come into your room and left without closing the door? Every graduating year of FMHS has experienced something similar to this annoyance, entitlement followed by disrespect. Fruita Monument High School does not integrate freshman, leaving the sophomore class to be at the bottom of the totem pole. How do the seniors often adapt to new and younger students?

Oftentimes, superiority and knowledge can get into older students’ heads. With that being said, the jump from Junior to Senior year provides students with a much needed boost. This entails a positive influence of mentality, ego, energy and more. Along with this expanded ego, seems to come an unfair grudge against the sophomores. Kiley Bell, Fruita Monument senior, expressed “From what I’ve seen, the new kids don’t seem too bad.” She shortly followed up with, “and other than age I don’t really see any social differences.”

She also shared why she thought the two classes were getting along so well this year. She said, “We’ve been fairly integrated throughout classes so we don’t really have a choice.”

It’s common for upperclassmen to have a superiority complex when the newcomers step onto their turf. According to another Fruita Monument senior, Geno Gaellgos, “I look at some of these kids like my little brothers…and I’ve been wrestling with some of them for years.” Through mixed classes and other instances, the two classes have been acquainted for longer than they have been at the high school.

Class to class agendas can get in the way of spending time with your friends at school. However, this still leaves time for passing periods and lunch. Fruita Sophomore, Braxton Romero, shared that he’s gotten to know a lot of upperclassmen while going out for lunch. “Most of the older kids seem to be pretty cool with us… and they give us rides to lunch.”

Following the same trend, junior Kelli Bond stated “I like how nice and helpful a lot of them are… at the end of the day we are all here for the same reason.” School and work can be stressful, but it always helps to surround yourself with friends and people you can pass the time with.

When students find a common ground to share, they find school to be less of a burden. Senior Dylan Massey, shared “Seeing my friends is probably my biggest driving factor for school.” Dylan also shared that if he had to switch schools, he would not show up very often. “School feels less like a responsibility when I’ve got my people to hang out with.”

Whether we like it or not, us students of Fruita Monument Highschool all must learn to look past each hierarchy in order to create a better school chemistry. Through small commonalities, students of Fruita Monument seem to have come together surprisingly well this year. When it comes down to it, there’s only one thing a Fruita Monument Wildcat should hate… and that’s a tiger.