Eric Johnson & Mikaela Turner
The thought of high school in the eyes of a young student is one of the most intimidating things that they will have to experience in their short years as a scholar. As freshman, many students believe that they will be bullied on the first day as soon as they walk into the school. Students fear that they will be made fun of for their high voices and short heights. They also believe that moving on to a larger school means that they will have trouble navigating through the building to their next classes and have trouble finding their friends and colleagues. This is a perfectly normal fear for new high school students and is a major part in the survival of high school. As seniors now, we both have experienced almost all four years at this school. Many people would say that freshman year was “a struggle”. If it wasn’t for freshman orientation the day before school started, all would be lost. But quite frankly, freshman orientation didn’t help with all the upperclassmen that came in on the very next day. As freshman, orientation made us excited because we got to figure out how to get places before the year even started; little did we know about how complicated it would start to be when every single person finally got into the building. But surviving this year isn’t as hard as it seemed. Looking back now, it was mostly drama. People you grew up with started thinking they were better than anyone else. Freshman year is practically when you start to weed out friends and figure out your true ones. It was about starting your life, thinking about college which keeps coming closer and closer.
As students reach their second year of high school, they begin to realize that although school isn’t necessarily easy, it’s not as bad as they had expected the previous year. Students now know how to get around most of the building and are more understanding of the way that the school functions. As experienced high school students, we found that sophomore year had been a lot easier after we had gotten to know most of the students and teachers that attend the school. Classes and activities were made less difficult because we had at this point figured out whom to go to for help if we ever needed it. We at this point had also begun to establish the people that we are known as in high school. We picked the personalities that people would associate us with, and we chose our groups of friends that we would be the people who would help us survive our short time in high school.
As high school students reach their first year as upper classmen, they have at this point mostly gotten a grip of the high school life style. They are beginning to think about what they would like to do after high school and are beginning to reach a point of maturity. As a junior, a high school student has probably never faced a more stressful period of time in their entire high school career up to this point. With the SATs and junior prom breathing down your neck, from the viewpoint of a junior, this year is one of the biggest years of their entire academic life. Looking back, we still cannot believe that we ever survived that year of high school.
As the last year of high school approaches, high school begins to feel like it was never that big of a deal. Being a senior makes a student feel like they have done it all. This causes a major case of senioritis in most seniors and becomes a problem as graduation approaches. Students become eager to graduate and go to college and forget how important it is to finish off high school to their fullest potentials. As seniors ourselves, it takes everything for us to fight the dreaded senioritis from taking over our short last year of high school. As long as a student focuses everything on college, graduation, prom, and their grades surviving high school will be as easy the last three years.
