Should a Burroughs pre-prom senior class dinner become a tradition? Short answer: Yes. Pre-prom plans are always a battle. Where to take pictures? Where to go for dinner? And arguably the most important: Who’s coming to dinner? Friends or dates? Do we go with our friends or their friends? Here’s an easy fix: take everyone.

First and foremost, organizing pictures is already an ordeal. Whereas taking pictures with the class would be confusing and cluttered, dinner has no such restrictions. Why add to the difficulty of picture planning by also trying to finalize dinner plans? It shouldn’t be impossible to pick a restaurant, yet somehow planning dinner morphs into an even bigger mess than planning pictures, mainly because no one wants to assert themselves and make the final decision. More often than not, everyone in the group will be okay with any restaurant. Instead of forcing that extra responsibility onto people, one family can organize everything, and the class will happily follow suit.

More importantly, pre-prom plans won’t clash if everyone has the same dinner! No one has to choose between two groups of their friends. They don’t have to feel guilty or spend part of dinner thinking “this is fun, but it would have been even better if this friend were here.” This way, that friend is here. No one has to choose between having dinner with their friends or their date’s friend or feel like their group, as fun as it is, is a little “incomplete.” As Luana Summer ‘18, says, “It was nice because people didn’t have to choose between going to dinner with their date or their friends, so everyone was kind of together.”

Some say you lose the small group feel in which all members are essential in the group’s crucial debate about heel size or whether or not the DJ will be good. Does the class gradually disintegrate into groups of two or three people because it’s impossible to sustain a conversation of 115 kids? Not if you don’t let it. Talk to your date and your friends and anyone you would have missed had they not been able to make it to the small group plans; talk to the people sitting around you. Have small group discussions! This way, you’re simply not limited to just one small group. Talk to whoever you want, and don’t feel pressured to include everyone in each conversation. Not a single person truly has the preposterous expectation of a stimulating conversation involving all 100+ classmates.

Lastly, think of the senior dinner as the “last hurrah” of everyone’s high school career before going off their separate ways to college. Why not celebrate it together? Hunter Sigmund, ‘18 loved the night’s epic start. “I thought the pre-prom dinner for the senior class was a great idea. It was really cool to have the whole class together before our last prom. I hope every class tries to do that in the future because it was a really nice way to start our last high school dance.” This is the last huge celebration you get to enjoy with everyone, save graduation.   This is your last chance to make memories, not just with the group of people you’ll continue to see, but with everyone that’s made the last four years such an experience. Make the most of it.