How have you changed since the beginning of the school year?

Jessica Chai, 11: “I think I’ve learned to enjoy my time more because I was like, ‘Shoot, it’s junior year already.’ [In] sophomore year you feel so much younger than you do when you are in junior year. Even though I have a lot of work and a lot more work, I need to take more time to relax and spend time with my friends so I’ve studied so much less for my APs this year than last year but it helps so much with your mental health and everything.”

Tareq Elhamdani, 9: “I haven’t changed much. I still kind of procrastinate but I’m still getting used to the high school life. [By the end of next year], I want to start doing all my homework on time and just being less lazy in general.”

Todd Gersten, 11: “My GPA has gone down like two whole points. Motivation has just consistently decreased.”

Anjali Finn, 12: “I guess I’ve become more outgoing and [been] talking to more people. I’m about to leave for college so I think that will be more helpful there. Don’t take everything so seriously and worry if everything is perfect.”

Corinne Hanway, 10: “I think in the beginning of the year I wasn’t equipped to handle the workload that comes with high school, but after a couple years I learned that there’s a lot of different resources that I can use. I think I made a lot more friends and I become more social. And also, I decided to go out of my comfort zone, like I tried out for a sport that I didn’t play before and I joined clubs.”

Aral Markert, 11: “I guess the major change has been how I approach school and work mentally because in the beginning of the school year, I was coming into junior year really worried about how difficult it was going to be because all the upperclassman say that junior is the worst year and that you’re going to be stressed out and you’re not going to have any free time. I had to force myself to take a step back and not put so much pressure on schoolwork and SAts and tests and everything all the time, so that’s definitely been a big change because junior year wasn’t as stressful as I anticipated it being. It’s sort of just like, the decision to prioritize my health over just focusing on getting into college and studying. I’ve definitely started doing new things this year, like I joined a fire department and I’ve been doing more volunteering outside of school so it’s part of just like trying to spend my time doing things that I really care about.”

Slavena Peychinova, 9: “Well, I still feel like it’s the beginning of the school year but I have learned to try to enjoy things while they last because now it’s high school, so things will go by, like how I’m pretty much done with my freshman year. From eighth grade, I think I’ve learned how to calm myself down and take it one day at a time.”

Azaria Johnson, 12: “I’m more open-minded since the beginning of the school year and more changed and my clothing style is a lot different. I was kind of a little wimp in the beginning of the year and now I’m a boss.”

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