A Not So Terrible Junior Year
Everyone says junior year is supposed to be the most arduous year of high school, and possibly our adolescence.
I disagree.
My fellow 16 and 17 year old peers might drop the paper after hearing that statement, but hear me out. I get it, junior year is demanding.
Countless hours of annotations, essays, chapter notes, math investigations, research papers, sentence diagramming, science conversions, lab reports, group projects, pop quizzes, exams, vocabulary lists, not to mention the beginning of a college searches all squeezed into about 185 days of our short lives.
But that’s just the point, life is short. It is cliché, I know, but it is the truest fact of time.
How many complaints have you heard about the atrocious list above just in the past week though?
I’m tired of all the denigrating I hear about junior year from past ‘survivors,’ future ‘victims,’ and current ‘sufferers.’ Students truly should not build up this year to be notoriously horrid, because we will get through the 185 days.
We will make it to senior year. We will graduate. And, one day we will look back on these glorious days.
I surely hope we do not look back and regret those sleepless nights spent tossing and turning about what letter grade was earned.
To those who reinforce the dread of junior year--I am guilty at times, too--we should rethink just how challenging this time is in our lives is in the grand scheme of things. So let’s take a different perspective on this.
Freshman year is ruthless (if you remember). We know how we were treated. The booing during pep rallies, constant begging for rides everywhere, and lack of freedom, locked up in that freshman academy.
Sophomore year is nearing the edge of decent. If we are lucky and old enough we might get our license but still be limited with hours of driving and how many people we can drive and on and on. Plus, as a sophomore lots of upperclassmen still didn’t quite take you seriously, and neither to many adults.
By senior year, most students are done. We check-out. We do the work required of us, but we will have more vexing matters on the mind; for example, our future.
I have not yet experienced this time in life, but I have witnessed others. I have watched friends leave. I have watched my own sister walk across that stage and into real life. Eventually we have to say goodbyes, choose friendships to keep, and leave high school.
So we have junior year. This one I can relate to, because I’m living and breathing this era as I write. I get it. I’m stressed with school and life too.
Trust me, I’ve pulled all nighters, gotten up for six am practices, said things I wish I hadn’t to let out my frustration, and cried myself to sleep about friends/family/the way the world turns.
Junior year is the far from easy, but we have a lot moving in the right direction. We have freedom. We have time before making final decisions that will impact our forever.
Most importantly, we have the option to see this year as an opportunity to grow and enjoy our time here that we still have.
I disagree.
My fellow 16 and 17 year old peers might drop the paper after hearing that statement, but hear me out. I get it, junior year is demanding.
Countless hours of annotations, essays, chapter notes, math investigations, research papers, sentence diagramming, science conversions, lab reports, group projects, pop quizzes, exams, vocabulary lists, not to mention the beginning of a college searches all squeezed into about 185 days of our short lives.
But that’s just the point, life is short. It is cliché, I know, but it is the truest fact of time.
How many complaints have you heard about the atrocious list above just in the past week though?
I’m tired of all the denigrating I hear about junior year from past ‘survivors,’ future ‘victims,’ and current ‘sufferers.’ Students truly should not build up this year to be notoriously horrid, because we will get through the 185 days.
We will make it to senior year. We will graduate. And, one day we will look back on these glorious days.
I surely hope we do not look back and regret those sleepless nights spent tossing and turning about what letter grade was earned.
To those who reinforce the dread of junior year--I am guilty at times, too--we should rethink just how challenging this time is in our lives is in the grand scheme of things. So let’s take a different perspective on this.
Freshman year is ruthless (if you remember). We know how we were treated. The booing during pep rallies, constant begging for rides everywhere, and lack of freedom, locked up in that freshman academy.
Sophomore year is nearing the edge of decent. If we are lucky and old enough we might get our license but still be limited with hours of driving and how many people we can drive and on and on. Plus, as a sophomore lots of upperclassmen still didn’t quite take you seriously, and neither to many adults.
By senior year, most students are done. We check-out. We do the work required of us, but we will have more vexing matters on the mind; for example, our future.
I have not yet experienced this time in life, but I have witnessed others. I have watched friends leave. I have watched my own sister walk across that stage and into real life. Eventually we have to say goodbyes, choose friendships to keep, and leave high school.
So we have junior year. This one I can relate to, because I’m living and breathing this era as I write. I get it. I’m stressed with school and life too.
Trust me, I’ve pulled all nighters, gotten up for six am practices, said things I wish I hadn’t to let out my frustration, and cried myself to sleep about friends/family/the way the world turns.
Junior year is the far from easy, but we have a lot moving in the right direction. We have freedom. We have time before making final decisions that will impact our forever.
Most importantly, we have the option to see this year as an opportunity to grow and enjoy our time here that we still have.