I don’t know about the rest of you, but I feel a sense of accomplishment making it to second semester. Probably because I’m a senior and I’m finally in my last semester of high school ever, sorry to everyone else who isn’t done yet… I’m sure you’re doing great! Many of you saw the survey I sent out, so I’d like to say a quick thanks to everyone who filled it out because I would not have been able to write this article without your responses. But now it’s time to get down and dirty with the details of how everyone’s first semester went this year.
The majority of the school had full schedules for semester one, most people having at least six classes. Hopefully their days were filled with as much fun as homework. Or at the very least it was tolerable. While everyone seems to have stayed pretty busy, the freshman win the award for having the most classes, with 72.2% of my freshman survey respondents saying they had a full schedule. Sounds terrible, I really don’t miss freshman year. But even with all those classes, most everyone enjoyed their schedules. The majority of you guys didn’t regret any of the electives you took, which is great. High school is a time to explore different interests and discover things we might want to continue on with in the future.
“I felt like the classes I took may actually be useful in my future.” – Brandt Kemmerer
There were a few people who regretted taking a class: the sophomores, who wished they’d taken a child development class instead of a computer class. And the freshman regret not taking an art class, but luckily for them and the sophomores, there’s two or three years left of opportunity for them to take new classes.
I know I personally felt very disorganized during my freshman year and I’m not gonna lie, my study habits were nonexistent (and still are), and it seems this years freshman are no different. When asked if there was anything they planned on changing about their habits in this next semester, a lot of them said something along the lines of studying harder or more, not procrastinating, and /or getting work turned in on time. So out of the 42 freshman responses, congratulations to the few of you who feel you don’t need to change anything.
Another very common thing about freshman year: a lack of confidence. And I think that’s very fair. You’re changing schools, there’s twice the amount of people as junior high, and so much is different. It’s sad to admit, but I used to get lost in this school and that was always stressful. But the majority of the sophomores said they felt more confident coming into school this year than they did as freshman, and I feel I have to agree. I think the longer you’re in high school, the more relaxed you feel at the beginning of the year.
While first day of school confidence increases with each year, another thing that increases is stress. Juniors and seniors all understand the stress of figuring out what you’re going to do with yourself once you graduate. It took me until halfway through my senior year to figure things out, so to all the juniors still stressing over it: give yourself time, you’ll figure it out. For my classmates, the majority of them said they were moving on to college after high school, but college is not the only option. I personally know a couple people who skipped out on second semester to join the military, while others have decided to take a gap year or go to trade school.
Overall, I think it’s been a very successful school year so far. I received 139 responses (thanks again) on my survey and out of those people, 90% of them said they’d had a pretty good first semester. Everyone had various reasons for their enjoyment.
“Having the ability to spend my last semester with some really great friends, teachers, and other classmates.” – Sebastian Williams
But I think the most popular response was something along the lines of not having to be here. I got a lot of responses saying their favorite part of the year so far was early outs, winter break, snow days, open blocks. Luckily for our teachers, there were also a lot of kids who enjoyed their time either in class or in extracurriculars. I think Mrs. Hintze would be happy to know that I got a a few responses naming Lancer Productions as their favourite part of the year. There were even a couple of teachers mentioned by name multiple times: Mrs. Albright and Mrs. Henningson. Take your guesses now who was mentioned more if you’d like.
Mrs. Henningson! It seems a lot of people enjoyed having her as a teacher and enjoyed both her psychology and sociology classes. I definitely agree, those were some of my favourite classes. Students also agreed that English class with Mrs. Albrights class as one of their favourite parts of the year, but I’ve never had Mrs. Albright so I can’t really say anything about that. Moving on!
As a senior, there are a lot of things I wish I had known earlier, and after looking at the survey responses, most seniors feel the same way. Similar to the freshman, a lot of us seniors agree that we wish we would have known better study habits and to not procrastinate. As Katherine VanNess so eloquently put it, “Don’t procrastinate… it will kick you in the butt.” A couple people mentioned that they wish they would have known that you are able to get your associates degree while in high school, and I have to agree with that as well. This is not something mentioned to us, its more of something you have to figure out yourself. But if you work hard and take the right classes, you are able to graduate high school with an associates degree. One of my favorite responses to this question came from Brendan Peters, “You’re gonna be friends with different people every year, and that’s ok. Your friend group will change.”
But I think one of the most popular, and important, responses was to not stress over everything, don’t worry what others are thinking, and have fun. High school is stressful, but it is not nearly as bad as TV shows and movies make it out to be.
“It’s not really worth stressing yourself out over every little thing.” – Kaden Trauffer
This past semester has been fun, but with spring break, prom, summer, and graduation coming up in these next few months, semester two is sure to be more exciting!
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