Lets just say being a freshman taught many of us a life lesson, not only it being our first year of high school but it was the start of a new journey, kind of a “Reset” button as many would  say.

During the years of 2016 through 2017 was when I was a freshman. Many astonishing events took place during this time all around the world. Some events where downhearted while others where delighted. While this time period did teach us a lot of lessons, we live and we learn and those events taught us to be a better human being.

Freshman year for many of us did not start as expected and caught many of us of guard. The U.S. presidential elections. The narrative of  the 2016 election seemed to set the tone for the entire year. Donald Trump’s astonishing win came at the end of a long bitter campaign where both sides flung accusations of sexism, racism, lies, cover-ups, illegal activity and even sexual assault. The country saw for the first time a political candidate who could change the entire conversation with a tap of his thumb and a tweet. And saw our first female nominee of a major political party, Hilary Clinton.

As we all may know by now, that was not the end of this colossal event. The “Russian Hacking” as we all may know this took place in 2016. This was a game-changer that rocked the presidential race. Emails that exposed damaging and embarrassing information on the democrats, creating major headache for the Clinton campaign, but it increasingly became clear that the large story was that the hack revealed America’s vulnerabilities to countries like Russia.

The Zika outbreak was another huge occurrence during this time period. Mosquito’s where public enemy number one in many parts of the world due to their role in spreading the Zika virus. Brazil was the epicenter of the outbreak, where thousands of babies were born with Zika, or a small head  and under-developed brain. That’s just one terrifying result linked to the virus, and it seemed researcher learned more each day throughout the year.

Another terrifying event that took place while I was a freshman was the Pulse nightclub shooting. In the midst of pride celebrations across the country, the worst mass shooting in modern  U.S history that targeted the very group that should have been celebrating. The attack left the LGBTQ community feeling raw and unsafe in a space that was meant to be their haven.

And last but not least an enormous event that still takes place till this day and was taking place way before this occurrence, fake news. Fake news ran on social media throughout the presidential election, and was sometimes even shared by political candidates.

Lets just day that 2016 and 2017 weren’t the brightest of the years, not only the U.S dealt with issues but the whole world dealt with occurrences all year round. This was really just the beginning of a long journey that was just starting.