A Freshman's Perspective of High School

Growing up. We have all heard these words several times. Either your dad is telling you to grow up or your mom is telling you that you’re growing up too fast. Whether you like it or not you have to grow up. Time has slipped summer away and high school has come to claim our hours with more homework and more responsibilities. We all thought that high school would be this fantastic adventure and that this would be the start of our lives. But us freshmen never thought about what else would come with a new year. While some of us are in search of a social life consisting of finding a boyfriend or girlfriend or going to school dances, some of us are just trying to focus on academics and get by without distractions. Then there are others who are just trying to fit in by staying under the radar. Then of course there are the others who would rather be anywhere else but school. Being a 9th grader means the start of something new, something that we’ve only heard or daydreamed about. Now that it’s real it feels like the dream bubble has been popped by the pinch of reality. School is school. Nothing changed that fact. We still have tests and we still have homework. We still have the same old school lunches and cliques that separate us from everyone else. We make new friends here and there and lose old friends here and there, but we knew that sacrifices were going to be made considering that we would gain the entire high school experience. Some of us have been longing for high school since we were in 5th grade. Others have dreaded it. But overall we all had the same amount of butterflies in our chests when we first stepped into school on the first day. Sure, some of us hid our excitement or anxiety, some of us couldn’t hide it even if we tried and others didn’t care at all because they’d rather be somewhere else like at home sleeping another day of summer away.

The first thing you noticed as you walked into the gymnasium was the diversity. You could pinpoint the Preps, the Goths, the Smarties, the Gangsters, the Cultured, the Fashionistas, and my favorite…the outcasts. We were this huge melting pot of colors and cultures and personalities that all had one thing in common. We were all fresh meat. Now the phrase is cheesy and old but that’s what we felt like. We were new and in this big school where some of us knew many people while others knew no one. We didn’t know what to expect and we were full of anxiety of what might happen that all we were worried about was getting by without tripping on our own two feet or embarrassing ourselves on the first day. Past crushes made our hearts skip a beat, familiar friends made us sigh with relief and new friends made us feel like we had already accomplished something before school even started. As the school year goes on we’ll wonder more about our futures and what roads we’ll want to take. But I think now all we want to do is experience high school the way it should be experienced.

Tags: opinions, sibleyscribe