This week, Warwick celebrates for the final year the graduation of three separate public high schools, Toll Gate, Vets and Pilgrim. As students cheer their accomplishments, one school, Vets, celebrated their last graduating class with 209 seniors crossing the stage for their diplomas last night.

There are less than 1,000 students in Warwick’s Class of 2016, a stark reminder of the district’s need for consolidation.

No matter their size, the Class of 2016 has achieved so much in their short time as high school students, from sports championships, academic recognition, community service, and surviving the always-dreaded senior project.

Especially with consolidation, graduations can seem like an ending, a finale to a grand show and the culmination of hard work in school. In reality, this year’s seniors are just beginning a new phase of their lives, finishing their basic training for the adventure of life.

Whether they step into higher education, the workforce or the military, students will be take their first steps into the “real world,” coming face to face with a state, a country and a globe that has high hopes for and great expectations of the graduates.

Even as our school populations keep getting smaller, students’ worlds continue to grow. Other countries and cultures are just a click away. You can visit the earth’s greatest wonders through virtual reality, never having to leave a classroom. Students, now more than ever, are in competition with the rest of the world as it becomes increasingly connected. The world will quickly become far more vast than the small classes and schools these students have become comfortable in.

The next several years will be exciting for the graduates as they explore their new lives, new careers, interests and passions. Never has a graduating class so truly held the world in their hands, with opportunities to do nearly anything they desire. The world is quickly changing and the graduates will be expected to do the same.

As nerve wracking as this transition may be for students, it is one that they will only benefit from, one they should be looking forward to and embracing. For all the effort they put into high school, students will need to continue striving for excellence. Now, they must put their intelligence, wit and cunning to the test as they maneuver this new chapter in their lives. This chapter is one that will begin to define the rest of their lives and they study for and decide on careers, careers that may very well not exist yet.

We wish the graduates good fortune, health and wisdom as they move from high school, knowing full well the road that lies before them is an exciting one. We hope they look back on their time in high school and their hometown fondly.