Event 4: WF-R Prom

Junior and Senior year of high school, the prom is the event of the year that all students look forward to attending. Girls spend hours getting ready, while guys are anticipating whether that night is the night they make their move on their date. Although the prom usually consists of junior and senior students from high school, it is occasionally a case where a college student is asked back to a prom and allowed to party hard. This year, I was one of the few college students that were asked back to a high school prom.

While living in Wake Forest for a couple of years, my parents lived near another family, the Shaws, who quickly became extremely close family friends. After I was around four years old, my family moved only four houses away in the same neighborhood and I became really good friends with both kids from the Shaws, Austin and Amanda, who were fraternal twins. Even after moving to Lexington after third grade, our families continued to develop a strong friendship. One of my favorite trips were when my family either visited or was visited by the Shaws. Because of our close friendship, Amanda asked me to her prom and Austin in turn asked my sister, Kathryn, as well. Unfortunately, Kathryn was unable to go since her high school's prom was the same night, but I accepted and went.

The prom was fun pretty much. Although I expected a lot of dancing to be done, I was surprised that the type of dancing did not involve individuals showcasing his or her own skills, but it was more of a huge grind-fest, where every song included each couple grinding on each other, and never stopping until the song was done. This was awkward for me, because although grinding is great, doing it every song with the same person really gets tiring. But all around it was good and we went back to some girl's house and played Mario Kart for a while.

Being in a high school atmosphere once again was really different from the way it was back in high school. During my senior year of high school, I went completely insane at proms, dancing like crazy at every prom I went to (I actually went to three that year). My high school senior prom was, by far, the best prom I had ever attended, and it still holds the record to this day. At the prom this year, everything seemed different. In college, many people are brought together by what they have experienced in college. For example, they understand the ridiculously of classes, Greek parties and late night excursions on class nights. In essence, what students see in college doesn't even compare to what's in high school. I believe that's why it was so different. It was particularly difficult to carry on a conversation at some points, because the students would talk about AP exams and different teachers they had, and also gossiping about who wore what and frowning when the word "alcohol" was brought up. The social environment was different. Period. After the prom, I was able to spend some time with a friend from Elon, and it was tons easier to talk with him. We talked about coming exams, interests inside and outside the Greek world, and how awesome college is. Being able to connect with him better proved why being back in high school was different. College and high school students are different, no matter how close of friends they might be.

Being a university student, there is no real benefit to going to another high school prom. Most likely, a college student has been at least twice, and it doesn't enhance your college experience by going once more when you've experienced college parties. I never saw any southern qualities either. It was just a neutral prom.