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Meet another student in our Senior Snapshots series, which offers a look at some of the New York teenagers getting their diplomas this month.

Getting through high school isn't just about making good grades. There are also the social pressures kids have to navigate as they make new friends and figure out where they belong.

Seventeen-year-old Merna Haridi said her Egyptian-born parents always encouraged her to study hard because they never went to college. But she said she was shy and  felt more comfortable reading and being alone.

"I never really had long conversations with my parents or my friends," she said. "They never waited for a call from me to say, 'How are you?' or any of that. I was just for myself, and I cared about myself."

Haridi said that all changed when she went to the High School of Telecommunication Arts, near her home in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Two of her friends encouraged her to branch out, and she joined the swim team and the tennis team.

"Just being involved forced me out of my little cage of books," she said.

Haridi also kept up her grades, even though she had a hard time initially convincing teachers she belonged in AP English because it wasn't her strongest subject.

This fall, Haridi is going to Barnard College on a scholarship. At first, she was scared about leaving Brooklyn to live in a dorm, but she said her friends convinced her to go.

"It's like my comfort zone at home," she said, "and I don't really want to leave it and just go out there. So I was told I'm a train ride away from the Upper West Side and Brooklyn so I could just take the train. It's not like I'm going to Connecticut or anywhere."