With the second semester of school quickly approaching, freshmen are finally getting used to being in high school. Although the transition from middle school to high school at first sounded like a nightmare to the majority of the freshmen, they are now realizing that it wasn’t as bad as they imagined it would be.

“There’s a lot more freedom and better options at lunch,” freshman Abbie Ellis said. “You can take a study and you can do your homework in lunch.  After school you can do whatever you want, and you can carry your phone around without getting in trouble.”

High school opens up a lot opportunities for students that were not available to them at the middle school. It allows them to make a variety of new friends with different interests and can even get students thinking about life after high school.

“I like how the high school has opportunities for everyone to try new things and find a new hobby or maybe a future career,” freshman Nick Forence said.

For most, the biggest change is the rules. In middle school there were strict rules on where and when you could use your phone and what you were able to do at lunch. At the high school they are a lot more lenient about these topics.

“I like that I am able to use my phone without it getting taken away and how I can do my homework at lunch,” freshman Molly Lagasse said.

For others, a major change from middle school to high school is that they are now the youngest in the school. In eighth grade, they were oldest. They knew the school by heart and were who the sixth and seventh graders looked up to. Being a freshman, that all changes.

“It’s hard being the youngest in the school. Now you have to start all over again,” freshman Celia Ponto said. “You go back to being intimidated and everyone is bigger than you. It’s not the best feeling in the world.” 

Another hard change for the freshmen was getting used to the homework load. Freshmen came into the high school school unaware of the late nights they would have to spend finishing homework and studying.

“The  workload in high school is so much more than in middle school,” freshman Kara Gil said.  “In middle school I would complain when I got over three homework assignments in a single night. Now I’m lucky if I get less than four or five assignments a night.” 

While many students in the freshman class have stated that the high school is so much more enjoyable than the middle school, others have said that they miss certain things the middle school offered that the high school doesn’t.

“Although I like high school, I wish it had more competitions like fire and ice [a competition where two eighth grade teams go face to face against each other in all different types of games and activities] because it gets everyone excited and full of school spirit and it’s something for everyone, not just the athletic people, to look forward too,” freshman Gia Komst said.

Freshmen have been told these next four years are going to be some of the best years of there lives. That there are many school events and changes that happen in these four years that will become memories that last a lifetime.

Many freshman are excited for these moments, but others have fears that are holding them back.

“I’m worried about making good decisions and not falling into peer pressure because it could ruin my chances for scholarships for sports and academics,” freshman Ciara Amerena said.

Some freshmen would say that the biggest difference from the middle school in high school was the size difference. In middle school you are with two other grades which are separated from each other and all your classes are in the same hallway. The high school has four grades with every student having a different schedule and classes scattered all over the school.

“The hardest part for me was finding my way around the school,” freshman Sean Cavanaugh said. “The high school is like a big spider web with many different hallways. It’s easy to get lost.” 

All throughout middle school, the teachers claimed that the way they taught us was preparing us for what the teachers would be like in high school. Many students believe they taught us too much and others believe they didn’t teach us enough.

“I think middle school prepares us for what we should expect from our teachers and classes in high school, but I feel like the teachers in middle school exaggerated what high school would be like for us,” freshman Kara Gil said.

Although high school is a lot to take in coming from the middle school, freshmen have been able to accomplish a lot throughout semester one.

“I was able to get used to the homework load, the schedule and navigate my way around the school pretty quickly,” freshman Celia Ponto said. “I managed to do all this and keep my grades up. It wasn’t easy, but I was able to do it.”