It’s hard to imagine Liberty High School students having already been in school for over a month. Along with the constant pressure of a busy schedule and keeping grades up, it can be a lot to manage. Students have already had a lot of assignments submitted into both the formative and summative categories, so grades have both skyrocketed and declined for underclassmen and upperclassmen alike.
Although all students face academic challenges, juniors have been theorized to have the hardest year by far. Junior Santonio Estoril explained his thoughts on his “distaste” for his science elective. “I don’t like Zoology very much… My teacher has been giving me these assignments where you have to analyze certain fish, and there’s a lot of anatomy involved, which makes it difficult when you don’t have the material memorized.”
As Estoril noted, high school is no walk in the park. Students face constant challenges, from micro-managing each class to not having enough knowledge to confidently complete the material and getting a passing grade on assessments.
In contrast to Estoril, Junior Jaquan Patterson explained a different view on how he balances school with his personal life. “I usually like my alone time after school,” he explained, “so unless I have to do something important, I tend to just take it easy.”
Although some find school easy, others have challenges throughout. It’s important to realize that grades aren’t everything and that you need to make time for yourself even with the constant stress of school. As Patterson said, it’s okay to just take things slow. This contrasts with Estoril, who later mentioned the stress of taking challenging classes.
More than just upperclassmen, some underclassmen also have their own ways of maintaining grades. Freshman Xanden Stephenson stated, “I have been managing the workload, especially in my programming class, so right now I have all A’s and B’s. Although I haven’t found the work to be challenging, it’s definitely been time-consuming. Every day after school I usually only have an hour to myself.”
Every year of high school is drastically different, so considering this is Stephenson’s first year, it’s important to realize the different challenges that will come. As Stephenson said, “It’s not challenging but time consuming,” which shows how even though the material itself may not be a challenge, the workload can be mentally draining and could potentially lead to burnout.
At the end of the day, every student is different, and it’s important to realize different students all succeed in different subjects. While some may be struggling in math or science classes, others may be thriving.
