High School has many misconceptions

BY Spencer Massicot

Every person living as a teenager in 2016 knows one simple truth; being a teenager is very difficult. As kids, we have to make transitions every few years to a new school with new friends. But the move from the nurturing and easy environment of elementary school and middle school to the relentless and difficult environment of high school is a huge shock. Even my teachers say, with everything that teenagers have now and all of the advancing curriculum in schools, high school and life as a teenager is a lot more challenging than it used to be.

In middle school, you have a minimal amount of homework and studying, a ton of free time and you are developing an excitement for upcoming high school.

Growing up we see all kinds of fictional movies and television about high school life, so the imagination of what we will do with our high school lives is kind of blurred.

We all expected high school to be a perfect mix of drama and fun to make it interesting, where everyone is a character, with evil teachers and rival cliques, wild parties every weekend, or maybe we might all break into a song and dance at any moment. Those are the misconceptions of what high school is really like, and a lot of people, including myself, were in for a rude awakening at the beginning of freshman year.

High school nowadays consists of a lot of late nights studying followed by waking up early the following morning, and being completely exhausted through the whole week while trying to make it to the weekend. However this year, more than ever for me, the weekends are not even a safe place anymore due to teachers scheduling tests on Mondays and Tuesdays while still giving out a mound of homework over the weekend.

So far this year I’ve spent most of my Sundays doing homework, usually trying to wake up before 7:30 a.m. to get a start on my workload and still have the afternoon to relax. Cross-country is coming to an end, but so far this season we have had several Saturday races, which take up much more than half of my Saturdays as well.

One thing a lot of middle school kids look forward to in high school is sports and athletics. I was really looking forward to the idea of having a team full of my friends and people I could count on, which is not a misconception at all. But the hard work and dedication that comes with a sport is shocking at first and is enough to really make a person’s grades suffer.

I know many people who have become ineligible from a sport and were kicked off of the team due to their bad grades. Sure, the fear of being kicked off of a team is motivation for some to improve their grades, but it is very hard to execute. Every sport has practice after school, every day. Some JV teams and sports get done with practice around 4 p.m., but that is only if they are practicing during sixth period athletics. Sometimes even sports that are not in season practice long after school is out. Some sports, like football, do not get done with practice until much later, I have even heard of practices going until 7 p.m.

Most days, I do not get home from school and practice until around 5 or 5:30 p.m. After practice in any sport, you are sore and exhausted, and the last thing you want to do is homework. But you have to. One thing I have learned in high school is how to spend every minute of free time during the day doing some sort of homework from another

class to take time off of the workload at night, so I can maybe get more sleep. In between classes, after tests, or when you are done with the task at hand before the class moves on are all times that you need to be doing homework and studying.

Procrastination is the worst thing for a teenager, and everyone is a victim of it at one time or another. Procrastination really causes work to not be at its full potential and puts a lot more stress on our minds. Major assignments that are procrastinated are rarely going to receive full points, and doing a little bit each day will make it so much easier.

Do not get me wrong, high school is a great place with amazing opportunities, but we have to be strong through all of the misconceptions. High school is simply what you make it, nothing from a movie, it’s all you. Keeping friends by your side to get you through it will make everything so much easier.