Lifestyle
Lifestyle
An Insight to the Freshmen Class
Freshmen is the year where students understand their abilities and learn how to manage their time wisely.
By Sneha Kumar
High-school freshman year is the year when all of a sudden you care about everything in life. You start wanting to
accomplish things you could not prioritize in middle-school; for example, you set expectations for yourself,“ As of now I am in high-school. I will use my time wisely, study harder and take out more time to spend with my family.” However, things turn out to be completely different. You try your best to study hard, but it stresses you out so you over-study and you stay up late. Ultimately, you are tired and sleep-deprived, which drags you away from all your commitments. Studying for a class, especially one that is boring or difficult, becomes merely a reason for getting a high GPA or making your parents happy; you are no longer actually learning. This is pretty much most freshmen’ s school-life. Freshman year is the adjustment year when a relaxed middle-schooler’ s life dramatically changes to a high-schooler’ s life full of academic pressure, most of it because grades are recorded on the transcript. Freshmen students also have to make important decisions by choosing to either prioritize grades or extracurricular activities such as sports or fine arts. The MCS freshmen batch of 2017 is no different.
As mentioned earlier, almost all of the freshmen this year began to be overly worried about their grades; now, every single percent of their quarter grade matters to them a lot. They say,“ Middle-school was wonderland but high-school is an ordeal”. Quite a few have even started contemplating which AP classes they should take in the future. Some 9th graders also started to apply their time-management skills learnt in middle-school. Usually, they prioritize studying for about four hours when there is a test and relax when there is nothing much but just a homework to turn in. During their leisure time, most freshmen spend time on social media, while others spend time practicing musical instruments, playing sports, or drawing. Freshmen want to have as much fun as possible during their leisure time because they believe as they would not get as much free time in the later years.
This class also has a certain number of people who prioritize sports. They lean more towards sport because they want to stay fit and have good stamina. The dedicated ones play sports almost every day, including weekends. Not even tiredness, body aches, or project work can hinder them from missing a practice. However, they believe that their freshmen year will probably be their last year to be committed to sports, because they think the upper grades would be much harder.
Lastly, there are numerous social butterflies who love to hang out and chat with their friends. Usually, they do both schoolwork and chatting at the same time, which they agree can be very distracting. Some, however, choose to care about grades and refrain from using social media, especially when they have to study for tests or finals; they are ready to sometimes sacrifice their social time significantly in order to achieve academic excellence. Still, a few of these do not care about grades that much; they believe they gave up on some subjects, but can make their way out through either sports or achieving fine arts credit. Nevertheless, all of the gregarious students believe that they would have to gradually decrease the time they spend socializing in order to concentrate and achieve what they want.
One could make a fair argument that freshmen is not a pressuring year because it is simply the beginning. But you cannot deny that it is a crucial year where students start learning time management as well as determining priorities. Freshmen students, starting with a less harsh workload, prepare themselves for more intense academic pressure and say goodbye to the stress-free moments in the past that was once meant for their friends and family.
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