Masuk Free Press

Picture yourself staying up late into the night, trying to finish an assist at lightning speed while hoping to still get a good grade on it. Visualize yourself falling asleep and then suddenly being woken up by your alarm and having to rush out the door to make it to the bus stop on time. Try to imagine the feeling of going into school ready to turn in your homework, only to suddenly realize you have a test you didn’t study for. This is the life of your average high schooler who wants to do well in the future by torturing themselves now.
Before we come into high school, we are all warned about the scary workloads, the long nights studying, the strict rules that the teachers enforce, and how our time management will be absolutely destroyed.
High school is very stressful, but what makes it that way? Are teachers right about everything they tell you?
“It’s like a more workload cause I’m taking more honors classes this year and I just feel like I’m getting more stressed cause I do have…work and school and sports and other stuff like activities that I do,” said sophomore Lauren Crowe.
Even if you are not taking honors or AP classes, there is no denying that your workload increases year by year.
“I definitely think for my friends it’s also increased,” said Crowe, “I talk to my friends and we always talk about how stressed…we’re getting.”
School work itself is what teachers always hammer into your brains when they are talking about how hard high school will be, so for those who were awake when their teachers were speaking, this information was not new.
“I think a lot of freshmen including myself were kind of prepared for that,” said freshman Christina McKellick, “everyone in middle school had told us it would happen.”
It’s extraordinary that middle school teachers do everything they can to prepare you for the amount of work in high school, but not about other things. Teachers tend to leave out how extracurricular activities, such as clubs and sports, not to mention jobs and certain positions, will affect your ability to get work done, and this can leave incoming students unprepared for the sudden change.
“Definitely a lot of afterschool stuff overlapping, I’ve decided to do something like a sport and clubs which is definitely a lot of work and a lot of different commitments, ” said McKellick, “that’s been a big stress…”
Students are always told to keep their grades up and make sure they are punctual, but they don’t share how you are supposed to do that while also not getting home for eight hours after school because of a sporting event. This has students scrambling to try to balance multiple tasks at once with little guidance from the adults around them.
Junior year has always been infamous for being the most difficult year of high school, and rightfully so. Between a substantial increase in class labor, planning for college, extracurriculars, opportunities and general competition from the kids in your grade, junior year is definitely a force to be reckoned with.. There are so many stressors, but some find it easier than others to determine which are the worst.
“I think the biggest one is probably [the] SAT, second biggest one is the jump in like difficulties in my classes from sophomore to junior year,” said junior Ishani Tyagi.
The SAT is a generational heart-killer, and thanks to the inhumane requirements from good schools to be accepted, students are under more stress than ever. Even seniors can reflect on their time last year and remember the bare levels of stress they were under.
“Junior year was really stressful because I was taking so many AP’s and it was just a lot of like school work,” said senior Ellianna Essenter.
Senior year is not necessarily much better than junior year, but it would seem  that there is some room to breathe.
“The classes get harder with…all the AP’s you have, but I feel like…all the senior teachers, especially this time of year with college apps and everything going on they know about that so they try to be cautious,” said Essenter.
It’s nice to know there is a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how long and dark it may be.
It is true, high school is hard, but schoolwork isn’t the only thing you have to worry about. SAT’s, clubs, sports, competitions, and planning for your future take up just as much time and energy. Students today are under way too much pressure, their stress levels are through the roof. If you don’t take anything else away from this article, just know you aren’t alone and that there are resources to help you if you need them. Having upperclassmen friends can be a stress inducer or reliever, but they do a good job of warning their underclassmen acquaintances about the things to come. So it’s been made clear that students’ lives in grades 9-12 are full of worry, stress, tests, assignments, sleepless nights, and more. So what are you supposed to do? The only thing you can really do is find your own way. Find what time you can go to sleep and still have energy for the next day, learn when you can get the most homework done, and search up ways to study better. Only you have the kind of power necessary to help yourself, so use it.