Fish Are Friends, Not Food

I never understood why upperclassmen are supposed to hate underclassmen. It’s an age-old precedent that’s been passed down from one generation of students to the next, and many students seem to conform to it.

I mean, think about it: upperclassmen were once underclassmen, too. Upperclassmen, such as myself, know how hard it is to adjust to high school. Underclassmen have it rough, and we know that, yet we still pick on them. Wouldn’t that make us hypocrites?

What really drives me nuts is when sophomores pick on freshmen. In English, we had to create a satire, and one group’s satire mocked this unfortunate truth. “I hate underclassmen!” one sophomore exclaimed in the video project.The peer sitting beside her groaned, “You’re a sophomore…”

I prove my point.

I follow the “treat others as you would like to be treated” principal. During my underclassman years, I noticed that some of the upperclassmen (emphasis on some) were a tad rude—especially some of the seniors. However, I knew that there were upperclassmen that actually respected the underclassmen.

In freshman year, one of my best friends was a junior. We became friends through Our Lady of Mercy’s Video Club (which I’m still an active part of today), and our friendship proves that upperclassmen can actually become friends with underclassmen. It also proves that upperclassmen and underclassmen are, when it comes down to the nitty-gritty, people nonetheless. Quite different from the norm that most students are inclined to believe, am I right?

Now I’m the upperclassman. However, I don’t like picking on freshmen, and I especially don’t like to see my peers pick on them either. Some of my best friends are currently freshmen. (I alluded to one of them in my introductory blog.) They’re actually pretty cool people, too.

One of my freshmen friends lived in Luxembourg for a few years. Another one is a huge fan of Owl City—much like myself. I may not know a lot of the freshmen, but, unlike a lot of people, I can tolerate them, and I’m able to find great friends in some of them.

Take into account the following quote from Disney Pixar’s Finding Nemo: “Fish are friends, not food.” Compare the underclassmen to fish and the upperclassmen to Bruce and his fellow sharks. The sharks all tried to make an attempt at not eating fish, regardless of the fact that they are supposed to prey on fish. Maybe the same principle could apply to the main topic of this blog entry. If more upperclassmen stopped antagonizing the underclassmen, then maybe we’ll finally be able to set aside our differences (whatever those differences actually are).

Long story short, upperclassmen, stop picking on underclassmen.

Catherine Litvaitis is a Wantagh resident and junior at  in Syosset.