Wesley Rolle of the Big Sky Sun Journal asks standout Seniors Brianna Canning and Bonnie Long about their time at Big Sky:

WR: you guys have been friends like all of high school right?

BC: Yeah and we went to Hellgate Elementary together, so we’ve been friends since like second grade.

WR: That’s Awesome! So when you got to high school, what were your first thoughts?

BL: Before I came to high school, I was super terrified that it would be really difficult.

For some reason I had this notion in my head that everyone was super intimidating and smart. I thought I Wouldn’t be able to do what everyone else was able to do but I think because we did volleyball and speech and debate, I was able to make friends that I knew.

BC: I was nervous about the same things and that the teachers would be mean and not willing to help me. But being in the Health Science Academy and also doing Student Government and Key Club as well, I was able to join communities that were really welcoming and helpful. They helped me figure out who I wanted to become.

WR: How did the choices that you made your freshman year influence the rest of your high school career? Like taking specific classes and then pushing you in a direction. How did that kind of shape how you guys have ended up today?

BL: I think starting in the Health Science Academy. In middle school, I thought: this is a really great opportunity so let me take advantage of it. And I think that because we took classes that were outside of normal high school, we were challenging ourselves which influenced us to take the IB program and challenge ourselves further.

BC: The main thing that has sort of impacted me was actually joining Student Government freshman year because I found a really close relationship with everyone there, especially Mr. Johnson and If I didn’t have that type of relationship with him, I don’t know if I would have been confident in going into the IB program. I talked to him on multiple occasions about it, leading up to the program, and he made the transition really easy into that as well, and so obviously I stayed in Student Government all four years. And so my action in doing Student Government freshman year definitely had an impact.

WR: What were some of your biggest challenges in the IB Program?

BL: I think specifically for me, the extended essay was something that I knew was a requirement; and I had written papers before, but I didn’t expect it was going to be that big of an undertaking. I feel so thankful they had us do that because I feel so prepared for college. However, the workload of IB is very challenging. We realized it wasn’t very steady. It could really calm and the next day be super intense and you would feel like you couldn’t do it anymore. But it was a really good challenge for all of us because it prepared us for next year.

BC: Yeah, the biggest challenges for me you were definitely when those tidal waves of work were going to come over because it would like one week we would have almost no homework and then the next week, all of these papers would be due and we would have a few tests and. Since it the first year of the program, even a lot of the teachers were unaware that we had so much going on. They tried really hard, especially during our senior year, to schedule due dates differently but then they kept pushing deadlines because we requested that they did. So they were willing to work with us on that but it almost ended up being worse for us because right before Christmas break, all of our internal assessments were due at the same time. And so even though we had more time for some of them, it was a lot worse for all of us because we had like four papers due in one week right before Christmas break so we were all like emotionally and mentally exhausted and so that time was definitely really challenging for me.

WR: Yeah, and now you guys are a done! How does it feel?

BC: I’m actually really happy to be done, but at this point it hasn’t really sunk in yet because we still have to come to class. So I mean I guess we’ll see once we get to graduation but for now, it hasn’t really sunk in for me.

BL: Taking on this huge endeavor in the IB program and also the Health Science Academy, starting senior year was like, OH MY GOD! I thought it was going to be credible once I got to the end.

But now that I’ve completed all these things and I got here, it all just seems pretty normal. I think people get to the end of high school and they start realizing that they’re really ready to challenge themselves further but I don’t know, it just feels sort of anticlimactic to be honest. We were all super stressed going into tests and then they were over and I was expecting to have this like, rush of relief come over me and that never happened.

WR: Okay, I think that’s all the questions I have. Thank you so much!

BC & BL: Thanks!