Faded teal paint, ancient magazines in seat pockets, and a graying steering wheel, smooth from wear. My ’95 Honda Accord bears the brunt of almost endless mockery (mostly of my own making) – an anomaly in a sea of Priuses, Benzes, and Teslas. Driving a vehicle that’s older than I am does come with its perks. I don’t face the terrorizing pressure of crashing a car my parents just bought for me, but I also end up yearning for the GPS systems and aux cords in my friends’ cars.

Somehow, the inherent privilege of having my own car ends up consistently lost on me. Privilege is so ingrained in our community, it’s not even a question of whether we have it — it’s become of a discussion of how much. As students, we are all well aware of the incredible array of resources provided by our school, and the accumulation of resources it took to get us here.

But I think the extent of our privilege is lost on us. Two weeks ago at a L.I.F.E. assembly, most of the senior class agreed that socioeconomics weren’t a source of division amongst the student body. Instead, we attributed our differences to academic pressure and the products thereof.

In one sense, I completely agree. In the past 13 years, I haven’t ever witnessed a student being maliciously judged at this school because of how much money they do or do not have. Yet, the underlying factor for that stems from a general assumption that we all come from the same place: a two-parent household with a stable, if not relatively high, income.

And so forms a student body almost insensitive to money. We casually, almost callously, discuss multi–million dollar donations to prominent universities, exceptionally expensive, professional-level lab equipment, or vacations spent parasailing on remote islands. Our privilege manifests in a series of micro-aggressions – unintentional, awkward, and surprisingly common.

One of the things I have anticipated most throughout high school are the hopeful arrival of senior privileges, essentially granting an open campus to the Class of 2015 (shoutout to my fellow second semester seniors!). Alongside many of my peers, the prospect of going off campus for lunch is so exciting that the ridiculousness of buying a lunch separate from the massive eight dollar buffet included in our tuition quickly dissipates into a passing concern.

Being conscious of our privilege is the first step – it demands sensitivity towards something we’re used to treating with nonchalance. As I look forward to where the next couple months will take me, I have to be more aware of where I came from and the 1995 Honda Accord that got me there.