Masuk Free Press

Teachers always tell their students that each year prepares them for the next and that the hard work now will be worth it in the future. Students are forced to balance their extracurricular activities and social life with an increased workload every year. There is a debate about which year is the most difficult to manage everything. While it is commonly believed in high school that junior year is the hardest, I disagree with this statement. Junior year is certainly difficult for many students, but it does not compare to the difficulty of senior year. 

Which year is actually the hardest, and what contributes to the belief that it is?

Because junior year builds on top of previous years, this generally leads people to view it as the most difficult. “I think junior year is the hardest because it’s a blend of development of skills that have been taught previously,” stated Stephen Casinelli. “You sort of get the foundations of skills freshman and sophomore year, and now we really develop those foundations and build them up junior year, so it is probably the most complex,” he explains. “In addition to that, the texts that you work with junior year are much more difficult than the texts sophomore year and freshman year. So it’s a blend of advancement of skills and more complex texts.”

However, if what makes junior year difficult is the accumulation of skills, then it makes sense to believe that senior year is harder than junior year. Sophie Keppler, a senior, finds senior year to be the hardest. “I think senior year is harder. I felt like I had more of a workload this year between capstone, filling out college applications, taking APs, and just doing my regular work,” Keppler said. “I felt like last year as a junior, I didn’t have to focus on as much stuff and I only had to focus on completing my classes.” Senior year is a combination of academic difficulty and planning for the future, along with a project that juniors don’t have to worry about. Having not experienced senior year yet, juniors only have their previous years to compare it to.

Abby Troesser, a junior, shares her perspective. “Out of all my other three years in Masuk, this year I’m taking two AP classes which have really bumped up the workload. And just trying to balance sports with these high-intensity classes has really been a struggle. I’m finding my own ways to deal with this and keep my grades up, but it’s definitely a bigger challenge for me.” This reinforces the idea that the main source of stress for juniors is their classwork. Meanwhile, Keppler argued that seniors experience more stress.

“This year was already very stressful between finishing applications, going and visiting these schools, doing the capstone and like internship work and then juggling also, just hanging out with friends and completing your normal school day work,” she said.

Casinelli notices an increase in stress among juniors. “I think that it’s a combination of the workload, identity, things that typically just happen junior year because you’re sort of on the cusp of adulthood. You’re not necessarily an adult yet, but you’re close to it. And so you got that and then you also have the question of what do I want to be because I need to figure that out for senior year. And so there’s I think just a lot of forces against the juniors in junior year.” 

College is right around the corner, so this can be a cause of stress for juniors such as Troesser. 

“I’m kind of stressed with my college planning because when you’re picking out colleges, you need to know what you want to do, and some people don’t even know what they want to do yet. So with the clock above our heads and seeing all the seniors getting their college essays in, it really puts the pressure on us to start thinking about our future.”

Because junior year is generally perceived as the hardest and can be a stressful year, Casinelli and Keppler have some words of advice to offer.

“Seek out help. There is never a time where a teacher will push you away if you’re trying to get support. and I think that teachers are more helpful than kids think that they are, and if people are transparent and advocate for themselves, I do believe that teachers will actively help,” Casinelli said.

“Start everything early. Start preparing for your junior year and start figuring out where you wanna go for school and how you want to prepare for the SAT,” Keppler encouraged.