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The Official Student Paper of Riverside Poly High School

Candid and Clear: Selling Out Senior Year

Sep 27, 2013
Save the speech and just take our money for our necessities.

SENIORS: The senior assembly was aimed more at wallets than at students.

By Amy Wang, Opinions Editor

Last Monday, seniors assembled in the gymnasium during fourth period to discuss (not really) classified senior events, from Senior Grad Night to our much-anticipated Graduation Day. I’ll admit I was excited to go and relish in the reality that we’re seniors! That, and who am I to pass up a Get Out of Jail (I mean, class) Free card.

If time is money and money is time, then the senior assembly cost a good 52 minutes of our lives. Using Completely Legitimate conversions created by the People with No Lives Society, the assembly cost at least $80 per student, but for most, it’ll be much more.

While I appreciate the enthusiastic spokesperson, did he really need to spend three-fourths of the assembly trying to sell us additional jewelry? And who can forget the senior tankard they tried to push on us? Who wouldn’t want a huge mug with our entire class’ names on it? I think I’ll pass.

Knowing how and where to buy our caps and gowns is a necessity for every senior, but we can do without the specialized radar watch. The assembly’s purpose was to inform us about senior products on sale, which is understandable. However, those presenting spent far too long talking about products many of us aren’t interested in. Those who are interested could have just looked through the envelope of catalogs every senior received when they entered the gymnasium.

In reality, reading through the contents of the envelope could have replaced most of the assembly. Too much of the assembly was devoted to a sales pitch. I could have also done without that long, inspirational and frankly premature speech. After all, we still have around thirty weeks of school left before we graduate. That high school diploma isn’t in our hands quite yet. Give us that speech second semester and we’ll feel a little more touched. But right now, a lot of us are fighting senioritis or focusing on college applications.

The senior assembly had good intentions, but its message was lost in the never-ending product push. Cut both of our losses sooner next time: hand us the packet, tell us what we need to know (i.e. about our caps and gowns) and save the rest of the time for something more productive.

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