Common Tropes

 

Senior Year Struggles

 The last year of High School is ripe for drama. Seniors have graduation looming over their heads and are under more pressure. This trope encompasses the struggles students experience in their last year of high school. Going off to college is the biggest issue, with students panicking about getting into schools, which may cause conflict with characters who are resigned to entering the workforce after graduating. Characters who were aloof in previous years now have to get their act together, as graduation is not guaranteed. Because of this major change, seniors end up nostalgic. There is a lot of emphasis on the last big sports game, and dances like prom and homecoming. Any "Last Day of School" Plot focusing on seniors about to graduate will likely be filled with mayhem. 

 

Bittersweet 17

A character being seventeen  is often used to show when young adults are in their 'coming of age.' They are aware that they're entering their final days of true childhood, and are becoming nostalgic. Being seventeen also offers a sense of being not too young and not too old. Seventeen is the age people are both a child and an adult, and neither a child nor an adult. It's not only when the protagonist finds who they really are, but also when they feel most lost and searching. 

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Sex as a Rite-of-Passage

This is a plot where a boy (typically) who has no sexual experience will be mortally embarrassed about this and will feel the need to get de-flowered as soon as possible. The plot follows his attempts to meet girls so he won't be harassed in college. This is almost always a comedy plot. Typically the hero is successful and finally experienced. A message about love being more important than sex will then be put in, and the hero will settle down with a nice girl, quite possibly the unlucky childhood friend he completely ignored during his quest. Superbad is my personal favorite.

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