The 2010s are coming to an end, and for some it’s the end of an era. Milestones have been reached, records broken and precedents set. At McCallum, we saw former principal Mike Garrison’s last 10 years of his 16-year run as principal, our football team made it to the state semifinals, and our girls’ and boys’ varsity soccer teams were district champions, and we welcomed interim principal Brandi Hosack to McCallum. Austin became home to many big businesses and also many Californians. The United States legalized gay marriage, and the first image of a black hole was captured more than 53 million lightyears away.

The U.S. Women’s National Soccer team won gold at the Olympics as well as two World Cups. NFL quarterback Tom Brady won three Super Bowls out of the six he played in, and tennis legend Serena Williams broke the record for most grand slams at 23 with her last win in 2017. The Warriors went to the NBA Finals five times winning three titles, and Michael Phelps became the most decorated Olympian of all time with 28 medals.

Drake and Ed Sheeran were Spotify’s “most-streamed artists of the decade.” Taylor Swift released five albums, winning 10 Grammys, and both the Jonas Brothers and One Direction broke up. Although, the Jonas Brothers got back together before the decade came to a close.

Lucasfilm produced the final trilogy of the Star Wars “Skywalker Saga” and Marvel Studios concluded their 23-film Infinity Saga with the now highest-grossing film of all time: Avengers: Endgame, which was released earlier this year.

We’ve also seen seven different generations of iPhones, have gone from Angry Birds to Pokemon Go and now Mario Kart. Snapchat and Instagram became two of the most popular forms of social media, and TikTok took over.

As we go into this new decade, there is much to look forward to, but we also need to be aware of the roads that lie ahead. Some are clear, others we can barely see, and there are ones that we don’t even have a clue about yet. 2020 is a big year; first of all, it’s a “leap year,” and there’s also a presidential election. A musical about Princess Diana will open on Broadway, and the 2020 Summer Olympics will be held in Tokyo.

The 2010s were exciting, setting precedents for generations to come. Records were broken, and many cultural phenomenons were discovered. Now it’s time to move on and into a new decade with new expectations and new adventures awaiting.

—images taken from Creative Commons