By Michelle Pitcher
Editor-in-Chief

It is one of my worst traits, but I take people at face-value. I look at people relative to myself and decide how smart, funny or awkward they are. If you do this too, stop. It is bad. The worst thing we can do is underestimate our peers.

Just because someone isn’t the class clown does not mean they don’t sit in the corner and whisper hilarious comments to their best friend. Just because someone isn’t in the top 10 percent doesn’t mean they’re not intelligent. Just because someone acts awkward in certain situations doesn’t mean they lack people skills. People are so much more than we make them out to be.

I too have been underestimated (by the same token, I have been overestimated, but that is a different issue altogether). Although their intentions may be honorable, when someone tells you, “Wow, I didn’t know you were smart!” after a class discussion, it is difficult to muster up a smile and an expression of your “gratitude.”

As teenagers, we are constantly aware of how we must appear to others. We are often told that our peers are too busy worrying about themselves to scrutinize us, but we are all guilty of doing just that. We scrutinize in an effort to boost our own self esteem. Such is the nature of the teenager.

Despite my being an unusually good judge of character in most situations, I cannot know a person based on rumors I hear or first impressions they make or just unwarranted preconceptions of them that end up being unfair. People are capable of so much more than we give them credit for. And it took a 5-year-old fairy-princess-doctor to teach me that.