By: Vlada Rauner, Features Editor
The infamous first year of High School. The terror, the nerves, and the worry of not being able to find your classroom in the endless labyrinth that is the high school hallways. The upperclassmen are the queens and kings of this castle. The stereotype is that the freshmen are the serfs that go unnoticed until they become a problem. Don’t get me wrong, everyone was at one point, a freshman. But rest assured it does not last forever. The stigma around freshman and freshman year, are frankly an excuse for others to treat the new kids with less respect “the upperclassmen scare me, so I try hard not to be annoying, honestly” says Nate De Iuliis. Sure, freshmen may stop and congregate in the middle of the hallway, carrying around unnecessarily large backpacks, and ask their teachers tedious questions, but let’s get something straight. We were all freshman once, and whether we would like to admit it to ourselves or not, we all did these freshman things.
So now that we got that covered, here are some tips to get you through your freshman year without too much friction. Let us address something that needs to be discussed. The biggest stereotypical behavior of freshman is standing dead center in the hallways. Look, I get it, safety in numbers. But you guys need to understand something that not even many upperclassmen seem to understand. The hallway works just like a two-lane road. Stay to the right side of the direction you are facing, stay with the flow of traffic, and if you need to change directions, make sure no one is coming the opposite way before you turn.
Another tip is about talking to teachers. Please, for the sake of everyone in your class, if you have a question about the assignment, let your teacher finish explaining it fully before you put your hand up. Also, remember to look at the rubric so that your teacher doesn’t have to repeat themselves. Many freshmen are scared of the high expectations of high school teachers. In reality, the teachers just want you to be more independent and seek out answers yourself. Use common sense. If the teacher says that the essay has to be written in pen, and they didn’t specify what color, that probably means black or blue. So don’t bother raising your hand to ask ‘black or blue?’. Or, you could look at the rubric, where more specific guidelines are put. Finally, each teacher is different, which also means you’ll have to handle different types of guidelines for very similar assignments.
Next, let’s talk about those backpacks. Only bringing the essentials to school will help your back and your organization. You won’t have to shuffle through random junk to get your homework out. Also, think about investing in a laptop. Nowadays, even freshman classes have many assignments that are going to be turned in online. If you are going to have to turn in assignments online anyway, you might as well type it up online too. This way, you won’t have to carry around extra loose leaf paper in all your binders. Speaking of binders. If the teachers do not require you to have a binder for the class, don’t have one. The teacher knows the amount of work they’re going to be giving you, so if they say you don’t need a binder for the class, just don’t use one. This will reduce the amount of used space in your backpack.
Another huge tip that saved my life during freshman year, is not using a hall locker. The time to transition between classes has gotten shorter every year. Students, especially freshman who don’t know the building very well, do not need to worry about running to their locker before the last bell rings. Also, many students do not know that getting a locker is actually optional. You are not required to have a locker. Now, when you get your textbooks at the beginning of the year, instead of putting them in your locker, ask a teacher if you can put your textbooks in their room until the end of the day. Most of the time they will say yes.
Last but not least, I am going to address the freshman stigma again. Yes, there is a stigma. But you do not have to let it affect your first-year experience. Embrace being new. Take time to think about where you want to go and who you want to be. Make new friends, try new things, and make mistakes. But most importantly, learn. Learn how to be independent but still deliver, figure out what you want, and what you can do. Be confident, or fake it until you make it. Remember, we were all freshman once.