“You belong here” is the famous DGS motto, and one that has been portrayed on many T-shirts. However, the question always remains, how do we get students to feel like they truly belong here at DGS? The answer is almost always to get students involved in the numerous clubs and activities DGS offers, and while I agree that clubs and activities are a great way to form a community, it isn’t always as simple as just signing up for a club during Mustang Fury.
High school is an amazingly scary time in everyone’s lives, especially for freshmen, and the biggest worry is who to sit with at lunch. Trust me, once you find those friends, you aren’t letting them go due to fear that these new friends could leave as soon as they come. Hopefully, those friends are here to stay and you can separate yourself to do what makes you happy.
In my freshman year, I decided to join the freshmen play. I had signed up thinking my friend was doing it with me, but it turns out he wasn’t.

I went into this audition without knowing anything about DGS theater. As it turns out, I ended up being heavily involved in speech and every show I got into at DGS, not to mention I met my best friends. It’s scary to think that I almost didn’t even do the show, all because I didn’t know anyone.
The anxiety I get when I go into something where I don’t know anyone is very real and very humbling. In my experience, new things have always worked out in my favor. Peer pressure is often a warning to students against drugs and alcohol, but sometimes peer pressure could be as simple as joining a club just because your friends are doing it, or not joining a club because your friends aren’t joining.
When asking students, freshmen through seniors, 13/20 students said they had turned down a club opportunity because they didn’t have friends to do it with them. While I understand that going into something alone can be wildly scary, it’s still important that you branch out and stray away from following the lead of your friends. When you think about it, you had to meet your friends some way, an event had to happen that led you to meet the people you are closest with.
When you’re in high school, it’s so important to not follow the crowd, and stand out because it is the time in your life that is most crucial to forming the person you want to become. I promise that there will be people who like you if you are your true authentic self, it’s when you change your personality depending on who you’re with that will create problems. Be your own person because that is the only form of you that can truly succeed in this world.